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Ruin   Listen
verb
Ruin  v. t.  (past & past part. ruined;pres. part. ruining)  To bring to ruin; to cause to fall to pieces and decay; to make to perish; to bring to destruction; to bring to poverty or bankruptcy; to impair seriously; to damage essentially; to overthrow. "this mortal house I'll ruin." "By thee raised, I ruin all my foes." "The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us." "By the fireside there are old men seated, Seeling ruined cities in the ashes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ruin" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the government of Juan de Silva, especially of the latter's infatuation for shipbuilding, and its baneful effects on the prosperity of both the colony and the natives. He recounts the disastrous attempt to expel the Dutch by means of a joint Spanish and Portuguese expedition (1615-16), and its ruin and Silva's death at Malaca. Then he describes the opposition to Silva's schemes that had arisen in Manila, where, although, he had a faction who supported his ambitious projects, "all desired his absence." Los Rios cites part of a letter from Geronimo de Silva to the governor, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... this morning; that Fanny, poor child, had a headache,—directed especially at the culprit in question,—grew gradually into those little motherly fondnesses in mamma, that, like the fascination of the rattlesnake, only lure on to ruin. The doomed man was pressed to dinner when all others were permitted to take their leave; he was treated like one of the family, God help him! After dinner, the major would keep him an hour over his wine, discussing the misery of an ill-assorted marriage; ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... with trembling step he passed, And gained the fearful eminence he sought; As on surrounding scenes his eye was cast, His troubled spirit racked with frenzied thought, And urged by ruin on his empire brought, He uttered curses on the pale-faced throng, With whom in vain his scattered warriors fought And on the sighing breeze that swept along, He poured the fiery words that filled ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... had ever yet ridden in this Moroccan Mecca; but the Shereef alighted from his horse and offered it to Israel, and took Israel's horse instead and together they rode through the market-place, and past the old Mosque that is a ruin inhabited by hawks and the other mosque of the Aissawa, and the three squalid fondaks wherein the Jews live like cattle. A swarm of Arabs followed at their heels in tattered greasy rags, a group of Jews went by ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... bursting up from the building beside the ruin of the ancient tower which had faced the storms of countless ages only to succumb at last. The lightning literally had ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... himself from his embarrassments, to furnish him, on his pledging the public faith for repayment, with a draught on the financier for such a sum as would relieve the urgency of the moment. Thus was Greene occasionally rescued from impending ruin by aids which appeared providential, and for which ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... him and speaks, with the sympathy of a man for a child coming into his voice.] No, a weak lot; that's been your ruin, Dickie. I'll see ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch

... prettiest spot in the parish," continued Mr. Gilmore, "and as such it shouldn't be let go to ruin." Janet remarked afterwards to her husband that Mary Lowther had certainly declared that it was the prettiest spot in the parish, but that, as far as her knowledge went, nobody else had ever said so. "And then, you see, when I ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... Shallow would have seen through them. These last told Messrs. Shallow and Slender that the best thing that ever happened to them was coming to —— Jail. They thanked Heaven they had been pulled up short in an evil career that must have ended in their ruin body and soul. As for their present situation, they were never happier in their lives, and some of them doubted much whether, when they should reach the penal settlements, the access of liberty would repay them for the increased temptations ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... myself—I've got to catch some atmosphere stuff down here in Old Town. I'm just sending my assistant camera man and the two heavies and my scenic artist for this retake. It won't be much—but be sure you have the bank cleared, old man—because it would ruin the following scenes to have extra people registered in this; see? You did such dandy work in that struggle that I want it to stand. Boy, your work's sure going to stand ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... my wit? If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd, Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard: Do their gay vestments his affections bait? That's not my fault; he's master of my state: 95 What ruins are in me that can be found, By him not ruin'd? then is he the ground Of my defeatures. My decayed fair A sunny look of his would soon repair: But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale, 100 And feeds from home; poor I am ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... important men in the country had been educated there, and they wanted it to be there for their children; the inhabitants of the town, even the labourers and peasants, respected the good fathers and realised that the destruction of the college would result in the ruin of the area. So an arrangement was made whereby Dom Ferlus would become the owner of the college and the immense property which belonged to it. Nobody attended the auction, and the Principal became, at a very modest price, the owner of the huge monastery and the land ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... could not repress a smile, and kept her on a month to silence scandal. And last, la demoiselle de Pisseleu, anxious to obtain her place, brought about her ruin. Many would have liked to be ruined in the same way, seeing she was taken by a young lord, was happy with him, the fires of love in her being still unquenched. But to take up the thread again. One day that the king's sweetheart was passing through the town in her litter to buy laces, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... inevitable, the elder Desnoyers was filled with amazement. Humanity had gone crazy. Was it possible that war could happen in these days of so many railroads, so many merchant marines, so many inventions, so much activity developed above and below the earth? . . . The nations would ruin themselves forever. They were now accustomed to luxuries and necessities unknown a century ago. Capital was master of the world, and war was going to wipe it out. In its turn, war would be wiped out in a few months' time through lack of funds to sustain it. His soul of a business ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... gives an account of the fierce struggle between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. The story is treated in a manner most ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... schoolfellows, and had but the day before joined us in our lessons. Suddenly as, in a half-hearted way, we began our usual tasks, Dr. Bruce entered, pale and agitated. "Boys," he said, "a dreadful thing has happened to our good old town. God knows how far the mischief may extend, and what ruin may be wrought; but we know already that more than one old pupil here have lost their lives, and that some of you boys have lost those near and dear to you. There can be no school to-day. It would not be decent——" And then the Doctor's voice fairly gave way, and we ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... problem of heading for the great spaceport and escape from Earth, and he let them take him without further guidance. His mind was wrapped up in a whirl of the past—his past and that of the whole planet. Both pasts had in common the growth and sudden ruin of idealism. ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... past prepares us to see some of the advantages our rule has conferred. No longer are armies marching over India, supplying their wants by the plunder of its people, and leaving ruin in their track. No longer has the husbandman, when he sees at a distance the dust raised by the tramp of the Mahratta cavalry, to flee to his walled village, if he has one to flee to, or to his hamlet if he cannot do better, leaving ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... Heaven, I hold that far more precious than all else I possess. Can you show me then what care you bestow on a soul? For it can scarcely be thought that a man of your wisdom and consideration in the city would suffer your most precious possession to go to ruin through carelessness and neglect." ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... day, or as much of the day as he could call his own, so carefully and tenderly, that he owed his recovery in part, and the whole of what alleviation his disease admitted, to his benevolent care. Another had displeased Mr Gardiner, it was feared irremediably; and the young man would have gone to ruin, if Charles had not with indefatigable patience brought down his high and perverse spirit to the tone of apology and due humiliation; and, moreover, ventured to moderate his master's somewhat unreasonable anger. He got no ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau

... MacDougal and Mr. Phipps, a brother of Lord Normanby's, joined us. They pointed out the interesting points in the landscape, the Castle of Ardtornish, the scene of Lord of the Isles, etc., in addition to the fine old ruin we came to see. We lingered till the lighthouses had begun to glow, and I was reminded very much of the scenery at Wood's Hole, which I used to enjoy so much, only that could not boast the association with poetry and feudal romance. We then went into the house, and found a charming ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... quantity of rich and finely flavoured whitefish, or Titameg, besides other fish. But Titameg are only to be caught in large quantities during autumn, and of course much of the success of fishing depends on weather—one gale sometimes visiting the fishermen with ruin—ruin all the more complete that the nets which may be carried away have in many cases to be paid for out of the produce of the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... in treating him like a Christian and a gentleman, for he is both of these; but I do not believe in letting him fill up the Confederate navy with foreign-built steamers, to ruin the commerce of my country," replied the young officer with spirit. "My father would no more believe in it than I do. You should treat him, Captain Chantor, exactly as though he was ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... the Sepulchre, or proceed without apprehension to the scene of the Nativity, they enjoyed at least the consolation of keeping alive the remembrance of the great events connected with these interesting monuments of their faith; anticipating, at the same time, the approaching ruin of that proud superstition by which they had ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... another in their wild terror. There was a crash, and the building fell in. The flames licked up the other fiery flood, and had a brave battle in the cellar. The engines played until the air was filled with smothering smoke, and there was nothing left but a long, blackened ruin. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... distinctly smart, for instance, if she should take the Princess, or even one of the unmarried daughters, to her own house for a few days, as a refuge from the sordid atmosphere of debt and ruin, and beyond the reach of vulgar creditors, one of whom, by the way, she knew to be her own excellent husband. The Princess was probably not aware of that fact, for she had always lived in sublime ignorance of everything connected with money, even since her husband's death; and when good Pompeo ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... are situated on a hill commanding the high road from Toorkisthan over the Ir[a]k and Kalloo passes, and in the angle formed by the union of the Bamee[a]n and Ir[a]k rivers. It is impossible to fix the date of the first structure; it seems from the ruin to have been added to at many successive epochs. The size of the towers appeared very insignificant compared with the extent of ground which the building at one time evidently covered, but perhaps the towers, though small, were numerous. The only one now standing ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... rain resolved itself into a dim chaos of mist. Xanthus and Balius plodded on, but often paused and gasped, or, turning their heads as if they missed something, strayed from the track and drew us against the dripping bushes. After one such excursion, which had nearly been the ruin of us, and which by calling out coachee's scourging powers had put him thoroughly in good-humor, he turned to us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... sky, shedding our own blood or stanching that of our wounded defenders, students or teachers, whatever our calling and our ability, we belong, not to ourselves, but to our imperilled country, whose danger is our calamity, whose ruin would be our enslavement, whose rescue ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... to make what use you can of the report of the fortune M. Cavalcanti will bring without touching the money? This is no act of selfishness, but of delicacy. I am willing to help rebuild your fortune, but I will not be an accomplice in the ruin of others." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... into its mirrored surface. Then from its calm, the mighty torrents, wildly dashing and foaming, held me, when my mood was so; the many views from Chambery, too, woo one to linger. There was one old ruin, which, if we come upon, I think you would greatly admire; it was on the ascent, down near Genoa, and where we could rest. Some Brothers of Saint Gregory, I think, is their order; such a quaint little chapel they have, which you should sketch, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... control. He is consequently free with a freedom no other great man has ever had. It is not so much what he says that inspires confidence in him. It is this sensible freedom, this obvious detachment. With his philosophy he cannot for a moment believe that one man's mistake might ruin all. He is, for himself at any rate, the exponent, not the cause, of the events that will be for ever ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... in its several departments, will prove effectual to keep us a free people if this spirit is suffered to decay; and decay it will without constant nurture. To the neglect of this duty the best historians agree in attributing the ruin of all the republics with whose existence and fall their writings have made us acquainted. The same causes will ever produce the same effects, and as long as the love of power is a dominant passion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings of men can be warped ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... lover, who had hoped to come home in the full tide of victory and claim his bride as a reward for gallantry, had shared the fate of her father and brother. When the war was over, the remnant of the family found itself involved in the common ruin,—more deeply involved, indeed, than some others; for Colonel Myrover had believed in the ultimate triumph of his cause, and had invested most of his wealth in Confederate bonds, which were now only so much ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... hungry.' John, with the most aggravating mock modesty that I ever saw in my life, began saying: 'We are very much obleeged, ma'am, but we haven't the slightest occasion in the world to eat, ma'am, and——' when I couldn't stand it any longer for fear he would ruin everything after all. 'Madam,' I said, 'please don't pay any attention to what my partner says, for we are most desperately hungry.' The lady laughed right out at that, and said, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... had, profoundly interesting, and showing all manner of illustrative and realistic faculty. The sky is most tenderly painted, and with the truest outline of cloud of all in the exhibition; and the terrific piece of gallant wrath and ruin on the extreme left, where the cuirassier is catching round the neck of his horse as he falls, and the convulsed fallen horse, seen through the smoke below, is wrought through all the truth of its frantic passions ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... point they knew his strictness so well that they seldom ventured to go into arrear, and never did so with impunity. . . . They would have cheated, loved, and despised a more easy landlord, and his property would have gone to ruin, without either permanently bettering their interests or their morals. He, therefore, took especial care that they should be convinced of his strictness in punishing as well as of his ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin! An' naething now to big a new ane, O' foggage green! An' bleak December's win's ensuin, Baith snell ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... sir. I, too, have a plan. You shall not ruin yourself for me. You are only a very young man, sir, and have the world before you. I dread nothing but the temporary separation from Tui here. To me my arrest means only dismissal from the service and a couple of years in gaol; ...
— Officer And Man - 1901 • Louis Becke

... and shock us for a moment with their irremediable catastrophe? And we must not forget that before they went down, for many a month or even year they have been hard beset lives. Before that final and complete ruin, they have been drifting and struggling, driven and fighting, sin drawing nearer and nearer, their fated lives urged on, the mind growing darker, the stars in their souls going out, the steering of their own lives taken from their hands. Then there has been the sense ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... face with his hands, like one who would shut out a disagreeable sight. "But it is well to inform you, my son, of the questions whose agitation has at last brought the Church down till only Heaven can save it from rupture and ruin. Oh, that I should live to make the acknowledgment—I who in my youth thought it founded on a rock eternal as Nature itself!... A plain presentation of the subject in contention may help you to a more lively understanding of the gravity and untimeliness of the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... and power? What remains of Roman greatness even, except in laws and literature and renovated statues? Remember there is an undeviating uniformity in the past history of nations. What is the simple story of all the ages?—industry, wealth, corruption, decay, and ruin. What conservative power has been strong enough to arrest the ruin of the nations of antiquity? Have not material forces and glories been developed and exhibited, whatever the religion and morals of the fallen nations? Cannot a country grow materially to a certain point, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... rightly or wrongly, as the case may be, will prove either a benignant ruler, or a cruel despot. We may be its willing subject on the one hand, or its servile slave on the other. It may help us on the road to good, or it may hurry us on the road to ruin. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... something wanting, which is supplied in Volpone and The Alchemist. It has been asked whether that disregard of probability, which is one of Jonson's greatest faults, does not appear in the recklessness with which "The Fox" exposes himself to utter ruin, not so much to gratify any sensual desire or obtain any material advantage, as simply to indulge his combined hypocrisy and cynicism to the very utmost. The answer to this question will very much depend on each reader's taste and experience. It is undeniable that there have ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... stands was not worth more than the government price, which is about 5s. 5d. per acre: at present, the lots are valued, in good locations, at L.40 a foot frontage. The result is speculation; with sudden fortunes on the one hand, and sudden ruin on the other. Emigrants, as well as citizens themselves, have to 'move on' further west; and hence they are covering Wisconsin, Minesota, and other territories. Nothing can now arrest the flowing tide till it dash against the Rocky Mountains, and meet the counter-tide ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... one of the most beautiful of the temples, is the only ruin in Central Java of which the exact date of construction has been learned with any degree of accuracy. This was ascertained from a stone found in the neighbourhood, inscribed in nagari characters. Two versions of the inscription were ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid

... revealed to us, through the means of this crack-brained intruder, so dangerous an outlet by which our sovereign's life might have been brought into jeopardy. To show unto us that He works not by might nor by strength, does Heaven employ the feeblest instruments for our ruin or our deliverance." The priest, after this profane speech, resumed his station at the board, whence the king, with a proper and becoming dignity, had not arisen. But the council did not proceed in their deliberations after ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... news for me, boys," announced Mr. De Vere. "My fortune is safe now, and that scoundrel Blowitz can not ruin me as he ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... Greeks, sons of Atreus; I raise the cry, the cry, the cry; Come, come, hasten, I entreat you by the Gods. Does any hear, or will no one assist me? Why do ye delay? The women have destroyed me, the captive women. Horrible, horrible treatment have I suffered. Alas me for my ruin! Whither can I turn? Whither can I go? Shall I soar through the ethereal skies to the lofty mansions where Orion or Sirius dart from their eyes the flaming rays of fire: or shall I hapless rush to ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... in the hottest place. Maria stealthily moved it back while he was searching for the coffee in the pantry. She did not know much, but she did know that an empty coffee-pot on such a hot place would come to ruin. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... points me to my story! (Aside.) Madam, I did; and one whose pride and anger, Ill manners, and worse mien, she doted on, Doted to my undoing, and my ruin. And, but for honour to your sacred beauty, And reverence to the noble sex, though she fall, As she must fall that durst be so unnoble, I should say something unbeseeming me. What out of love, and worthy love, I gave ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... unlawful enterprises of our citizens against any foreign and friendly power." And he concludes: "History affords no example of a nation or people that uniformly took part in the internal commotions of other Governments which did not bring down ruin upon themselves. These pregnant examples should guard us against a similar policy, which must ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... am too frank. It will be the ruin of me sooner or later. It all comes of being born with a habit of ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... hear him. Giulio little imagines!—Well, dear love, we stand with a squad in front, and wait the word. It mayn't be spoken. We have counted long before that something like it was bound to happen. And you are brave. Ruin's an empty ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... eye more than any other ruin by its simple mass, its majesty, its grave and imposing air of antiquity. It stands there, alone, high as a mountain, a dead queen, but still the queen of the valleys stretched out beneath it. You go up by a slope planted with firs, then you enter a narrow gate, and stop at the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... never! Life and death, ruin and salvation, corruption and purity, are perhaps in the balance together, and the scale of your destiny may hang on a single word of yours. Speak out, boy! Tell these fellows that unseemly words wound your conscience; tell them that they ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... all this; he could not, like Commodus, be kept in ignorance. Either before he came to our camp, or, perhaps, in his elation at his rival's ruin and his own success, he adopted the ready plan. Most likely the separation from their fellows of the veteran mutineers was all his own idea; Perennis was not the man to carry out so bold a stroke nor so much as to conceive of it. Indubitably, after dark, the eighteen veteran ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... to observe," remarked the Colonel, "that many promising dinners are wholly spoiled by the idea that there must be an equal number of men and women. One uncongenial guest can ruin a dinner more easily than a poor salad—and that is ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... rest he distributed by lot amongst the proconsuls: but sometimes he made exchanges, and frequently visited most of both kinds in person. Some cities in alliance with Rome, but which by their great licentiousness were hastening to ruin, he deprived of their independence. Others, which were much in debt, he relieved, and rebuilt such as had been destroyed by earthquakes. To those that could produce any instance of their having deserved well of the Roman people, he presented the freedom ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... necessary for me to trace here the development of that financial policy which resulted in the ruin, I may say the annihilation of this order. Suffice it to say that it formed the capital fund of the government which exhausted it, and when the source of supply was destroyed, production ceased, and with it, of course, all means of governmental support. Where the extinction of this ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams

... laws as a legislator, but inculcated precepts as a teacher: inasmuch as He did not aim at correcting outward actions so much as the frame of mind. Further, these words were spoken to men who were oppressed, who lived in a corrupt commonwealth on the brink of ruin, where justice was utterly neglected. The very doctrine inculcated here by Christ just before the destruction of the city was also taught by Jeremiah before the first destruction of Jerusalem, that is, in similar circumstances, as we see from ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... 735; split, collapse, smash, blow, explosion. repulse, rebuff, defeat, rout, overthrow, discomfiture; beating, drubbing; quietus, nonsuit^, subjugation; checkmate, stalemate, fool's mate. fall, downfall, ruin, perdition; wreck &c (destruction) 162; deathblow; bankruptcy &c (nonpayment) 808. losing game, affaire flambee. victim; bankrupt; flunker^, flunky [U.S.]. V. fail; be unsuccessful &c adj.; not succeed &c 731; make vain efforts ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... that none of the shapely hands displayed on the black vests, had ever used other implement of toil than a pistol, bowie-knife or slave-whip; that any other tool would ruin the reputation of the owner of the taper digits; but they did not lose caste by horsewhipping the old mammys from whose bosoms they had ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... because she had no a new coach too; therefore, resolving to ruin Tom, she complained to the king that he had spoken insolently to her. The king sent for him. Tom, to escape his fury, crept into an empty snail shell, and lay there till he was almost starved; when peeping out of ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... those long-bearded gentlemen called the Druids; for in the various hypotheses which sagacious antiquaries have advanced upon their beloved Stone-henge, none, I believe, are to be found wherein the traces of a Library, in that vast ruin, are pretended to be discovered. As the Druids were sparing of their writing,[227] they probably read the more; but whether they carried their books with them into trees, or made their pillows of them upon Salisbury-plain, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... proud works of man, built of marble or granite, fall in ruins,—if a certain Renovales produced a few beautiful toys of cloth and colors, which a cigar stub could destroy, or a puff of wind, a drop of water leaking through the wall, might ruin ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... overhanging bough. Burr's attention is strangely affected by the fate of the green branch which he heard the bullet sever, and, as he sees it come wavering to the ground, he cannot resist the fancy that he beholds an emblem of his own ruin—a symbol of his future self—a living thing cut off from its nourishing stock as he was destined to be from a ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... Board-room, there is no knowing the amount of evil we may do to every individual shareholder in the Company. I find the responsibility on my shoulders so great that I say the thing must be stopped. Damme, Mr Montague, it must be stopped. We mustn't ruin widows and children, Mr Montague. We mustn't let those shares run down 20 below par for a mere chimera. I've known a fine property blasted, Mr Montague, sent straight to the dogs,—annihilated, sir;—so that ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... the actors at least should be blessed with genius, and what is scarcely less difficult to find, with a certain equality of talents; for the performance of the happiest actor of this school greatly depends on the excitement he receives from his companion; an actor beneath mediocrity would ruin a piece. "But figure, memory, voice, and even sensibility, are not sufficient for the actor all' improvista; he must be in the habit of cultivating the imagination, pouring forth the flow of expression, and prompt in those ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... time to think of the matter coolly, it's possible that some good may come of it yet. Such occurrences as this will not pass unnoticed by those in authority, and may lead them to see that things can't be allowed to go on as they are doing—that means must be taken to prevent the utter ruin ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... my ruin satisfy you? Since that night at La Scala, I am in disgrace with my uncle; I expect at any moment to hear that I am cashiered from the army, if not a prisoner. What is it that you ask of me now? To conspire with you in shielding the man who has done a mortal injury to the family ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... itself, and Chartism and the Chartists were some of the signs of the disease. The early Victorian age is the age of Thomas Carlyle, the stern, grim prophet, who, undaunted by poverty and ill-health, painted England in dark colours as a country hastening to its ruin. ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... there. Everything was ready, and it was now that De Froilette's anxiety was greatest. He was too complete a schemer not to realize how often it was the small insignificant thing which served to ruin great enterprises built up with so much care and elaboration. Over and over again he had tested every point in his plans, and had not succeeded in finding any weak spot. There seemed to be no contingency he was not prepared to meet, for which he was not ready; and yet a sense ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... Grace excitedly, "that woman is determined to ruin Anne before the close of school. I tell you, I won't believe Anne is guilty. It has taken just this much to make me certain that she is entirely innocent. Is there no clue whatever to the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... little socialist; do you wish to ruin all the millionaires and trust companies by giving away their trade secrets in this way?" ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... been slowly, and at a tremendous sacrifice of life on both sides, forced back from line after line, and position after position, into the city itself; his batteries were raining their hail of shot and shell from the heights round London, and his aerostats were hurling ruin from the sky upon the crowded millions locked up in the beleaguered space; and yet the man who had presumed to tell him that the hour in which he set foot on British soil would be the last of his Empire, had done absolutely nothing to interrupt the ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... the influence of which upon France and even Europe could be scarcely divined; now he directed the attention of the House (February 4, 1790) to the dangers of the revolution, by which the French had shown themselves "the ablest architects of ruin," pulling down all their domestic institutions, making "a digest of anarchy" called "the rights of men," and establishing a ferocious, tyrannical, and atheistical democracy. It might be said that they had done service to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... said Agatha. "If he is going to ruin himself, he is not going to do it without knowing that the Bates family ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... large vanities and small ambitions. He is not big enough to conceive a revolution, but is ready to be the tool of any unscrupulous man who is, and, having too much egotism to follow orders, will ruin a project at the last moment by attempting to think for himself. I do not say these things to wantonly insult you, senorita, only to let you know at once how I regard your brother, that you may not accuse me of treachery or ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... the poor children were brought to the altar, and the priest stood ready with his knife, when out of the clouds came the Golden Ram, and took them on his back, and vanished. Then madness came upon that foolish king Athamas, and ruin upon Ino and her children. For Athamas killed one of them in his fury, and Ino fled from him with the other in her arms, and leaped from a cliff into the sea, and was changed into a dolphin, such as you have seen, which wanders ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... of enlightenment and insight, he entered on the first pure state of ecstasy. All low desire removed, most perfect peace ensued; and fully now in Samadhi he saw the misery and utter sorrow of the world; the ruin wrought by age, disease, and death; the great misery following on the body's death; and yet men not awakened to the truth! oppressed with others' suffering (age, disease, and death), this load of sorrow weighed his mind. "I now will seek," he said, "a noble law, unlike the worldly methods known ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... from this amazing ruin was a little two-storied house, whose four rooms looked exactly, as four rooms are represented in section on the stage, the front wall having been blown clean away, and the furniture and inmates swept out; the very fender and fire-irons ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... under every tree in the yard was strewn with boughs; what must be the ruin of the woods whence the noises had reached him in the night? Looking out of his window now, he could see enough to let him understand the havoc, ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... Britain is thrown into a dilemma. The slave trade to America must be prevented, in her opinion, or it will ruin the East Indies. To prevent the renewal of this traffic—to keep up the price of cotton as long as may be necessary, for the benefit of India, and prevent a supply of African slaves from reaching the American planter—is a problem that requires ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... a fragment of science—a headless corpse, unfit to rank among complete sciences. Theology claims the highest rank of all, but based as it has been on the conceptions current in the dark ages, it has become, in the light of modern science, a crumbling ruin. Does psychometry compare with astronomy and geology in its scientific rank, or does it compare with the acephalous biology, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various

... when he had fallen into a reverie, and was regarding her with eyes dreamily tender. "I'm ready for your eyes now, and that expression will never do. I've put your head and face in an expression of strong defiance, and those eyes would ruin it. Look real angry for a minute, and let me catch the expression!—no, not that way, it's too fierce; but just steady and earnest, as though you were determined to do ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... seas of space Bang into Luna's unoffending face. Meanwhile our own alert star-gazing chief, DYSON (Sir FRANK), is rather moved to grief Than anger by the astronomic pranks Played by unbalanced professorial cranks, Who study science in the wild-cat vein And "ruin along the illimitable inane." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... when he herd all this, and I asked him how he could make so light of it, when he must needs know that if there was any discovery I was undone for ever, and that even it would hurt him, though not ruin him as it would me. I upbraided him, that he was like all the rest of the sex, that, when they had the character and honour of a woman at their mercy, oftentimes made it their jest, and at least looked upon it as a trifle, and counted the ruin of those they had ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... few of the people on board were saved: at the very same unhappy juncture, a fleet of laden ships were coming from the north, and being just crossing the same bay, were forcibly driven into it, not able to weather the Ness, and so were involved in the same ruin as the light fleet was; also some coasting vessels laden with corn from Lynn and Wells, and bound for Holland, were with the same unhappy luck just come out to begin their voyage, and some of them lay at anchor; these also met with ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe

... Mr. Thompson, relating to my alleged insubordination, laziness, refusal to work, etc., but all to no effect. Finally he told my master that I was so disobedient that the rest of the slaves were affected by my conduct, and that I would ruin all the slaves on the plantation unless severe means were used to ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson

... may break, you may ruin, the vase if you will, But the scent of the Roses will hang round ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... fracture, dispart, sever, rend, smash, shatter, shiver, splinter, batter, burst, rupture, crack; infringe, violate, disobey, transgress, trespass; communicate, disclose, divulge, tell, impart, broach; discipline, tame; bankrupt, impoverish, ruin. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... distance back, and villages were scattered here and there. Nevertheless they passed but few natives, and Edgar saw that many of the houses were roofless, and that there were signs of fire and destruction everywhere, and understood that this ruin had been wrought by the hosts of the Mahdi. About mid-day they arrived at a village on the bank. Its name, Edgar learned by the exclamations of the Arabs when they caught sight of it, was Gerada. Here a large native boat was lying moored. Bidding Edgar remain ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... these cones and the hill we were about to ascend. The ground was covered with fragments of indurated quartz (of which the whole group was composed), in parallelograms of different dimensions. The scene was like that of a city whose structures had been shaken to pieces by an earthquake—one of ruin and desolation. The faces of the hills, both here and in other parts of the group, were cracked by solar heat, and thus the rock was scaling off. We were here obliged to dismount and walk. The day being insufferably hot, it was no pleasant task to climb under such ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... been made so to flare in early youth, that there was no oil left to light him at the end, when light and warmth were most needed. Having quarrelled with his father-in-law, the great Earl of Burleigh, he registered a savage and senseless vow to "ruin his daughter," which he could do only by ruining himself. In pursuance of this insane resolution, he spent right and left, until his estate was wrecked, and the innocent Countess Anne was hunted ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... only go to ruin if he is sent to prison," Pelle had said. "May God help the boy in his own way! I will try to help him in mine. Who knows what I might have been if I had kept on as a sailor!" So Pelle, for the time a prominent man, went round in the neighbourhood and collected ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker

... you, in the calm excellence of your wisdom, reconcile it with your conscience to say something that will relieve my father's sorrow? FREDERIC: I will try, dear Mabel. But why does he sit, night after night, in this draughty old ruin? GENERAL: Why do I sit here? To escape from the pirates' clutches, I described myself as an orphan; and, heaven help me, I am no orphan! I come here to humble myself before the tombs of my ancestors, and to implore their pardon for having brought dishonour on the family escutcheon. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... gods and the grass-grown fora of the Romans. It touched with a glow as of blood the highest fragment of the Coliseum wall, behind which beasts and men had made sport for the Masters of the World. The rest of the Titanic ruin seemed in shadow. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... said Oswald, whose eagle eye had caught a glimpse of scarlet through the arch of the ruin. ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... his views.* His favourite formula for denouncing other sects was, "nembutsu mugen, Zen temma, Shingon bokoku, Ritsu kokuzoku" ("incantations are phantasms; the Zen is a demon; the Shingon, national ruin; and the Ritsu, a rebel"). Nichiren gained great credit for predicting, on the eve of the Mongol invasion, that a heavy calamity was about to fall upon the country, but owing to an accusation of political intrigues, he was first condemned to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... sitter-in-judgment. Even so we might have contrived a little sympathy if the woman's fifth-rate environment had not made any community of tastes hopelessly improbable. For her, too, it seemed to us a poor business that the only encouragement she could offer him in the undeserved ruin of his career was to get it blasted all over again—and this time on a true ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... terror. Lying in that heavenly sunshine, with fruit-laden boughs within reach and heaps of gold beside them if they should wish for it, they could laugh at Vesuvius licking in vain with its fiery tongue toward them, and at the black clouds heavy with hail that would spread ruin over the fields far away from these celestial vineyards and the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... feeble successors of Stil'icho had made no preparations for resistance; they retired with their master into the fortress of Raven'na, while the Goths, spreading ruin in their march, advanced to the very walls of Rome. Six hundred years had now elapsed since an enemy had appeared to threaten THE ETERNAL CITY; a worse foe than Hannibal was now at their gates, and the citizens were more disabled by luxury from ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... whenever the action tends to become real. They intrude here, to impersonate the Nine Worthies before the two Courts. The farce of their performance is heightened by ragging from the courtiers. When it is at its height, two of the members of the sub-plot begin to quarrel. One blow would ruin the play by making it real. At the crisis the violence is avoided; the reality is brought unexpectedly, by beauty. A messenger enters to tell the Princess ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... no desire for life, if only his boy were safe; and to Raymond he presented a pathetic petition that he would guard and cherish him, and save him from that terrible possession which had well-nigh been his ruin body ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Now there was in that town a vagabond, who made his living by sharping, and he knew that the idiot had somewhat of money; so he fell to spying upon him and gave not over watching him till he saw him put in an earthen pot that which he had with him of money and enter a deserted ruin, where he sat down, [as if] to make water, and dug a hole, in which he laid the pot and covering it up, strewed earth upon the place. Then he went away and the sharper came and taking what was in the pot, covered it up ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... a smile, "at present it is a question not of death, but of ruin; and I do not wish you devoted even so far. You shall live, and not be ruined, at least, not by me; for they say you ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... "Ruin, I know. Well, Levy, it is, on the whole, to your advantage that I should not lose. There may be more to get from me yet. And, judging by the letters I received this morning, my position is rendered so safe by the absolute necessity of my party to keep me up, that the news of my pecuniary ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ever-increasing perils, he will escape me at the first opportunity in spite of all my efforts, and this opportunity will not long be delayed; he will follow the blind instinct of his senses; the chances are a thousand to one on his ruin. I have considered the morals of mankind too profoundly not to be aware of the irrevocable influence of this first moment on all the rest of his life. If I dissimulate and pretend to see nothing, he will take advantage of my weakness; if he thinks ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... chartered banks, under an infinity of regulations and restrictions against excesses and frauds; and we have had, as the appropriate commentary, three tremendous cataclysms, in which the whole continent was submerged in commercial ruin, besides a dozen lesser epochs of trying vicissitude. The history of our trade has been that of an incessant round of inflations and collapses; and the amount of rascality and fraud perpetrated in connection with the banks, in order to defeat the restrictions upon them, has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... immoralities. He was a superior workman, discontented with his lot. He sought to better it by speculative operations outside his vocation. As his daughter expresses it, "he went in pursuit of riches, and met with ruin on his way." She also remarks of him, "that he could not be said to be a good man, but he had a great deal of what ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... and he says that would be your ruin, for the property is sequestered, as they call it, or forfeited to the Parliament, in consequence of your father having fought against it on the king's side. It no longer belongs to you, and you would not ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... useless to argue about this with me, Esther. Entirely useless. In your weakness you would indulge and ruin the boy. But I know ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur

... surged around table at which he sat. Hardly left him time to reply. Having politely conducted Ulster to door, enter the City Fathers, fresh and eager for fray. Told him over again in varied phrase how he was bringing country to verge of ruin; listened with perfect courtesy, as if they'd been discussing someone else—say, his next-door neighbour, SQUIRE of MALWOOD and Junior Lord of Downing Street. Up again when last in list of City speakers had concluded. Almost persuaded JOHN LUBBOCK ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various

... involved in the course they were pursuing. Surround the President with Ministers of State and "the President will be induced to place more confidence in them than in the Senate.... An oligarchy will be confirmed upon the ruin of the democracy; a government most hateful will descend to our posterity and all our exertions in the glorious cause of freedom ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... Lorenzo Monaco let us enter the first Tuscan room. The draughtsmanship of the great Last Judgment fresco by Fra Bartolommeo (1475-1517) and Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515) is very fine. It is now a ruin, but enough remains to show that it must have been impressive. These collaborators, although intimate friends, ultimately went different ways, for Fra Bartolommeo came under the influence of Savonarola, burned his nude drawings, and entered the Convent of S. Marco; whereas Albertinelli, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... laughed; "then it's only the hasheesh. But, Skinski, on the level, I do wish you'd quit smoking those No. 4's; they'll ruin your imagination." ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh

... he might some day take an abiding interest in the housemaid. Worst of all, he had been made to appear ridiculous in Maisie's eyes. A woman will forgive the man who has ruined her life's work so long as he gives her love; a man may forgive those who ruin the love of his life, but he will never forgive the destruction ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... advance to the attack; but, like the others, they were divided and disheartened; and, entertaining the idea that they were posted on a desperate service, they even meditated withdrawing themselves to the main body. This would have been utter ruin; for, on the defence or loss of this pass the fortune of the day was most likely to depend. All beyond the bridge was a plain open field, excepting a few thickets of no great depth, and, consequently, was ground on which the undisciplined forces of the insurgents, deficient ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... content, The richest Landlord on the Banks of Trent? For why did Wolsey by the Steps of Fate, On weak Foundations raise th' enormous Weight? Why but to sink beneath Misfortune's Blow, With louder Ruin ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson

... Wise Young People who bear rule drink each other under the table, race to Brighthelmstone, killing half-a-dozen children by the way, and ruin themselves at play during the night. Altogether it is a fine place, this London, and if you were here you might very well say, with the witty Frenchman, 'The more I see of human beings, the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... the Pecos; the ranch is a ruin, and stands in grim contrast with the old temple and church on the hill; and both are monuments of civilizations that will ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... to what is generally called politics than I shall be again. I only want to show you what commercial war comes to when it has to do with foreign nations, and that even the dullest can see how mere waste must go with it. That is how we live now with foreign nations, prepared to ruin them without war if possible, with it if necessary, let alone meantime the disgraceful exploiting of savage tribes and barbarous peoples, on whom we force at once our shoddy wares and our hypocrisy at ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... this kind, or any other that might happen to the ship, would infallibly loose our passage to the East India's this Season,* (* In November the wind changes to the North-West, which would have been a foul wind to Batavia.) and might prove the ruin of both ourselves and the Voyage, as we have now little more than 3 Months' Provisions on board, and that at short allowance. Wherefore, after consulting with the Officers, I resolved to weigh in the morning, and Endeavour to quit ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... dictator had wisely decreed that the army should assemble at Tibur. So it happened that there was none to go now save himself and a small escort of cavalry, five turmae, at the head of which was Sergius. With these went Rome's last hope: the cast behind which lay only ruin, but for the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... me—brought her back to me restored in mind, but with all memory of what had passed during her dementia erased from her consciousness. Everything depended now upon my learning how much of her past she did remember. A single ill-judged word of mine—a single false move—might ruin all, and bring back the life of misery which I seemed at last ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... of arms! as welcome as to one That would be rid of such an enemy. But that's no welcome. Understand more clear, What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks And formless ruin of oblivion; But in this extant moment, faith and troth, Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing, Bids thee with most divine integrity, From heart of very ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... wit, and Love in innocence; So that the muddy lover may learn here, No fountains can be sweet that are not clear. There Juvenal, by thee reviv'd, declares How flat man's joys are, and how mean his cares; And wisely doth upbraid[60] the world, that they Should such a value for their ruin pay. But when thy sacred Muse diverts her quil The landscape to design of Sion's hill,[61] As nothing else was worthy her, or thee, So we admire almost t' idolatry. What savage breast would not be rapt to find Such jewels in such cabinets enshrin'd? Thou fill'd ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... stately pile of crumbling mortar, and stones shifting from places they occupied for centuries. The outer walls stood and inside the square was a keeper's cottage hidden in a warm snug corner, concealed from prying eyes, unnoticeable until the ruin was entered. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould

... of archaeology are made familiar, and, not least, from the impression they make of the artist's own strong interest in what he had to say. In both pictures he succeeded in showing the Colosseum as no longer a ruin, but as, so to speak, a living place peopled by the swarm of the Roman populace, with the emperor and his court, and the College of the Vestal Virgins, and, for chief actors, the hapless wretches ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... nervous, too," he went on. "He is pestering me about the money I owe him, or rather the syndicate owes him. He's on the verge of ruin." ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... scene of ruin which they looked in upon after they had pulled aside Mr. Mansfield's flag, and one well calculated to ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... him consoling. For this book was published sixteen years before the Franco-Prussian War, when Germany, the world must admit, proved that it was not decadent. Yet every page of it is a Jeremiad, an exhortation to his countryfolk to stop short on the road to ruin. He does not see that the whole nation is slowly and patiently girding its loins for that mighty effort; he believes it is blind, weak, and flighty. If he had lived in England, and a little later, he would ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... filth, half burned and defaced. The relics of the precious only son, who had died a few years before—the beautiful memorial room, filled with pictures he had loved, beautiful vases, where flowers always bloomed; and a thousand tokens of the loved and lost, had shared the universal ruin. So had the writings and the clothing of the lamented father, Isaac T. Hopper—of all these priceless mementoes, there remained only the marble, life-size, bust of the son, which Mr. Gibbons had providentially removed to a place of safety, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... confined to the interior. Three military departments will be organized—the Shannon, the Liffey, and the Foyle—and the campaign will be entirely predatory or guerilla in its conduct. The British Coast Guard stations will fall easy conquests, their number and isolation contributing to their ruin; while from the Wicklow Mountains, through all the rocky fastnesses of Ireland, the cottagers will descend upon the British garrisons, maintaining perpetual and bloody rebellion till the better news comes across the sea or the patience of England ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... hats with priests under them, a sure crop in Spain, but scarcely a citizen was to be seen, or aught else to be noticed, except a few rusty towers and antique fountains. Everything seemed impregnated with decay, more desolate than an actual ruin, because of its moth-eaten vitality, which left nothing to hope for. Plainly the only life in Cordova is that imported by curious travelers from abroad, who make pilgrimages hither to see its few historic monuments, and to behold a Herculaneum ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... Descent, the lawful Inheritors of very great Fortunes; But, by the Arts and Combinations of the Noted Hunt-Bubble, and the Knot— And, by what is commonly called Playing all the Game, Your Petitioners have been stript of their large Possessions to the utter Ruin of themselves and ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin

... discoveries, written great poems, commanded armies, or ruled states, but who by unwise neglect of this point have come to nothing. Imagine Hercules as oarsman in a rotten boat; what can he do there but by the very force of his stroke expedite the ruin of his craft? Take care then of the timbers of your boat, and avoid all practices likely to introduce either wet or dry rot amongst them. And this is not to be accomplished by desultory or intermittent efforts of the will, but by the formation of habits. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... the haunt of the jug orchid—a veritable jug, lid and all. Raising the lid you would find the jug half filled with water. Sometimes in the tangle up above, between two trees, you would see a thing like a bird come to ruin. Orchids grew here as in a hothouse. All the trees—the few there were—had a spectral and miserable appearance. They were half starved by the voluptuous growth of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... myself; I suppose I deserved everything that happened. But they told me that she would be there only between trains, and that she was deaf, and that I had an opportunity to save a fellow-being from ruin. So in the end ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... wretch," he thought with a sort of relish. "Weep till you ruin yourself. I won't be the one ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... she protested, "it would utterly ruin you! There was one woman there to-night—very handsome—I knew she was your mother. And I saw the way she looked at me.... It's no use, Clive. Those people are different. They'd never forgive you, and it would ruin you or you'd have to go ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... which to atheistical politicians seemed unanswerable presented no difficulty to the Saint. It might be perfectly true that, by relaxing the rigour of his principles, he might save his country from slavery, anarchy, universal ruin. But his business was not to save his country, but to save his soul. He obeyed the commands of God, and left the event to God. One of the two fanatical sects held that, to the end of time, the nation would be bound to obey the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... it will ruin us," he said. "Instead of arriving in proper order at the mouth of the passages, and occupying them before the Genoese wake up to a sense of their danger, we shall get there one by one, they will take the alarm, and we shall have their whole fleet to deal ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty

... amounted to nothing.' The truth is, there occurred in the cases of these gentlemen a dreadful struggle. The dilemma for them was perhaps the most trying upon record. Gallantry and manly tenderness forbade any man's confessing, for a certain result of ruin to a woman, any treasonable instances of love which she had shown to him. Yet, on the other hand, to deny was to rush into the presence of God with a lie upon their lips. Hence the unintelligible character of their final declarations. Smeton, as no gentleman, was hanged. All the other four—Norris, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... stumbled among heaps of rubbish in the dark passage; and, as he groped along the wall, his hand brought down patches of old lime, and was caught in spiders' webs almost as strong as if the spinner had meant to go a-fowling. When they had got into the parlour, he saw that the building was indeed a ruin; there was not a whole pane of glass in the window, nor a plank of wood in the damp floor; and the fireplace, without fire, or grate to hold it, looked like the entrance to a burying-vault. John, however, walked quietly in, and sat down on a heap of rubbish by the ingleside; and William, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... she pleaded, "that it's ruin to ship now? It will wipe me out completely. Put some one out there of your own choosing, if you can't trust me, but don't make me sell with the bottom ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... Pokono Mountain, over which Mr. Hall passed, is famous with the sportsmen and epicures of Philadelphia, for its grouse. Mr. Hall crossed the Blue Ridge, at the stupendous fissure of the Wind Gap, where the mountain seems forcibly broken through, and is strewed with the ruin of rocks. There is a similar aperture, some miles north-east, called the Water Gap. This affords a passage to the Delaware; and all the principal rivers of the states, that rise in the Alleghanys, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... which I start only three miles below, and call by my name—my gute name which when I was useful was so popular—is neglected, and everybody flock here. I once was rich; now soon I am bankrupt; all because my men discovered this gold. This gold, I hate it. It will be the ruin ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... eyes could see. It was wild and terrible, with neither vegetation nor sign of life. Here and there were heaps of ruin, which had been villages and cities; but nothing was in them save reptiles and crawling poisonous life and traps for the unwary wanderer. How often I stumbled and fell among these ashes and dust-heaps ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... all, the idealist is ever justified. He is justified today in Europe no less than in America; justified by the ruin and waste that have come in the train of following outworn political creeds, and yielding to animosities inherited from past centuries; justified by the disastrous results of unchecked national economic competition, when the ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry



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