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More "Undoing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sin and base life comes not into their mind to correct them, and bring them to repentance; but presumptuous thoughts, and a hope and faith of the spider's, the devil's, making, possesseth their soul, to their own eternal undoing (Job 8:13,14). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... . ." she hesitated ". . . unpractical mind?" Hadassah's understanding and gentleness made her feel childishly weak. It would have been a relief to give way to weeping. Her nerves were at the point when any rebuke would have braced her sympathy was undoing. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... soldiers' evidence was the undoing of Dorn and his fellow-criminal. Arrested and put into jail, they were sent to Dar-es-Salaam for trial by court-martial on the evidence. How the guard hoped that an attempt to escape would be made, such an attempt as was so often ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... believe," said she to herself, "that I begin to see how it was done. Nay, perhaps I could tie it up again, after undoing it. There would be no harm in that, surely. Even Epimetheus would not blame me for that. I need not open the box, and should not, of course, without the foolish boy's consent, even if the ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... forty feet away, now thirty and almost ready to drop. Ten feet more and he would fire, Chris resolved. But that ten feet proved the ambitious little darky's undoing. A concentrated drop of buzzing liquid fire struck him above the eye, while hand and legs seemed splashed with molten fire. Down went the rifle with a thud and with a shrieked "Oh golly, oh golly, oh golly!" a black ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the many writers who help us to reconstruct the period we ought to signalise one, Mrs A.S. Green, who to a rare scholarship adds something rarer, the genius of common sense. This is not the place in which to recall the whole substance of her "Making of Ireland and its Undoing" and her "Irish Nationality"; but from borrowings thence and elsewhere we can piece together a plain tale of that first chapter of ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... they are called upon to fight, and often our temptations, when not the immediate product of our own hearts, grow out of the circumstances under which our lives are lived. If, again, the temptation be not the direct result of these circumstances, it is often aided by them in the undoing of the soul. The poverty and wretchedness; the low bodily state of the slum dweller, have, at least, as much to do with making him the sot he often is as his intemperance has in bringing him to indigence and misery. Criminality, we are beginning to ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... be too diligent in eliciting these signs, because of the pain caused by the manipulations, and also because vigorous handling may do harm by undoing impaction, causing damage to soft parts or producing displacement which does not already exist, or by converting a ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... before he was nine months old, and although the regency of the two kingdoms to which he was heir had been arranged by Henry V. before his death, the reign of the third king of the House of Lancaster saw the undoing of much that had been accomplished in the reigns of his father and grandfather. It was during the reign of Henry VI. that Joan of Arc came forward alleging her Divine commission to rescue France from the English invader. But it is not part of our subject to describe her heroic career. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... four-shilling lava-lava about his loins. I could not get him to spend money. There was no way of repaying him except with love, and God knows he got that in full measure from all of us. The children worshiped him, and if he had been spoilable my wife would surely have been his undoing. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... girl—she has ruined me, she will be my undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended for you—it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance—oh, how can I ever excuse myself ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... gives it any thought, that if I could I would not dare interfere. And then I am so absorbed in color-prints! So I am, and, I pray Heaven, in some way to his undoing. The child has no other friend. Shrinkingly she told me of her one attempt to make friends with some high-class people, and the uncompromising rebuff she had received upon their discovering she was an Eurasian. The pure aristocrats seldom lower ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... perhaps she ought to tell him; she knew how her own words, about the way they were thrusting a sinner down, would stay with him and his wife. They would quite likely grow in the slow mind of the old man until he became uneasy and unhappy about her, and blamed himself for her undoing. At the time that she spoke she wasted the words to so grow and germinate; but now, looking back, she could think differently; after all the Van Heigens had only done what they thought right, and she had done what she knew to be at least open to doubt. And they had ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... thud, heard a sound as of a scrambling solid body cast abruptly prone, heard the name of Deity profaned, and divined without looking back that the ash can, conveniently rolling between the plump legs of the personified Arm of the Law, had been Officer Switzer's undoing, and ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Lancelot, of this thing it behoves ye take better rede; lightly might it turn to my shame if all my knights rode forth, and I thereafter were beset with strife and warfare, as full oft hath chanced aforetime! So might it in sooth be mine undoing. It hath chanced afore this that I had lost crown and lands, save for my knights; by them have ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... steaming-hot, delicious milk. She took it standing up not far from Hollyhock. She resolved in her own mind to take no notice whatever of Hollyhock. Jacko was to the Lady Leucha as one who did not exist, but in her busy, vain little brain she was forming schemes for the undoing ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... James Otis one is struck from first to last with the impetuosity, the earnestness, the ardent temper of his nature. This was at once the secret of a great measure of his power and also the partial source of his mental undoing. As a student at Harvard, the last two years of his college life were marked with great assiduity in study, and while at home during the vacations in this period, he devoted himself so closely to his books, that he was seldom seen by his friends, and often it was not known that ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... fostered by their long defense of slavery. That genesis of the movement is all the more impressive when we recognize the high personal character of its leaders, and acquit them of conscious motives of personal ambition. Slavery was their undoing. The habit of absolute control over slaves bred the habit of mastery whenever it could be successfully asserted. There grew up a caste, its members equal and cordial among themselves, but self-assertive and haughty ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... growing more numerous every day. For such persons the physical order of nature, taken simply as science knows it, cannot be held to reveal any one harmonious spiritual intent. It is mere weather, as Chauncey Wright called it, doing and undoing without end. ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... very beginning, his playing on the new organ excited admiration, but his artistic temperament frequently threatened to be his undoing. For the young enthusiast was no sooner seated at the organ to conduct the church music than he forgot that the choir and congregation were depending on him and would begin to improvise at such length that the singing had to stop altogether, while the people listened in mute admiration. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... well-watered plain of Jordan," but he overlooked the city of Sodom and its exceedingly wicked and sinful people. And the thing he overlooked was the biggest thing in the outlook! It was to prove his undoing, and to bring his ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... destruction, undoing, dilapidation, disorganization, perdition, ruination, subversion, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... that we cannot lose, unless we be false to ourselves. It is the tenure by which we hold of Heaven, without which we are but outlaws, that cannot claim protection. Nor is there wisdom without virtue, but only a cunning way of procuring our own undoing. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... could dominate another more completely than Meshach dominated his sister. But here, for Leonora's undoing, was just a case where, without knowing it, Hannah influenced her brother. He had a reputation to keep up with Hannah, a great and terrible reputation, and in several ways a loan by him through Leonora to John would have damaged it. A few minutes later, and he would ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... she was, there were moments when Janet felt her responsibility almost unbearable. Rachel deserted—Rachel in despair—Rachel turning on the woman who had advised her to her undoing—all these images were beating on Janet's tremulous sense, as the small military hut where Ellesborough and two of his junior officers lived came into view, together with that wide hollow of the forestry camp where he and Rachel had first met. The letter in her pocket seemed ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... apprehensive for Isabinda, her Father's Humour is implacable; and how far his Jealousie may transport him to her Undoing, shocks my Soul ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... study, and undoing my desk, I found a little yellow-covered book attached to a golden chain which I had picked up just after my friend Shin Shira had vanished the last ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... distance, a shot rang out in the forest ahead, and rattled from tree to tree like the echo of a skirmish. It was not from Fred's gun, or Will's. It was the phantom rifleman at work again. Schillingschen—Schillingschen's ghost—or whoever he was, he could not have timed his fusillade better for our undoing. The first shot was followed by six more in swift succession. And then ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... recognize the figure which confronted him on the stoop, when at last he succeeded in undoing the door. The man wore a raincoat turned up about his chin and the soft brim of a felt hat dripped ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... put her children to bed, only to find that her fertility of imagination in the afternoon was to prove her undoing in the evening; for her memory was by no means as reliable as her powers ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... you'll learn why Mars is called the Red Planet, the part the Mafia plays in her undoing, the rape and rapine that has made this heavenly body the cesspool of the Universe. In other words, ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... refused what fell below her standard. She had not realized until now that Francis Sales had always been below it. She had at least tried to wrap their love in beauty, but that sort of beauty was not enough for him. It was her scruples, he said, which had been his undoing, and there was truth in that, but she had to remember that when originally she had disappointed him, he had found comfort quickly in Christabel; when Christabel failed him he had returned to her; and now he had found consolation, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... waited, but Vergilius made no reply. Now, indeed, was he living in a great and memorable moment. He thought of the power offered him—power of doing and undoing, power of raising up and putting down, ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... of you. I only know that I owe you and those other gentlemen a very considerable debt, and I have been solemnly warned against you by the young lady whom I met at the Cafe de Paris. I have been assured that association with you is the first step toward my undoing. Monsieur Bartot, for all his bluster, seemed very anxious ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... deck to shut the skylight, but the catch was very stiff; it took me some few moments to undo. I noticed, as I worked at it, that the deck was empty, except for the lanky man with the package, who was now forward, apparently undoing his package on the forehatch. I thought that he was a sort of pedlar or bumboatman, come to sell onions, soft bread, or cheap jewellery to the sailors. The carpenter's head showed for an instant at the galley-door, He was looking forward at the pedlar. The hands were all down ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... in a boat, and this morning we raked in all of the gang. We have them nicely ironed over at the old boarding house, where one of my men is watching over them. Among them, Mr. Merriwell, are your friends, Hicks and Wiley. Somehow they think you were concerned in their undoing, and they have expressed sincere regrets that they did not do you up, instead of capturing you and stowing you here in the old cave. The chap who was watching you came over to get his breakfast this morning, and now he is ironed with the others. There are ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... dear, oh dear! It is that very tolerance that has been his undoing. Why, but for you, I should have made a good moral man of him: as it is, you and your support have made a ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... as if they and I had belonged to opposite political parties. However, I held my own. I was not able to push through the legislation I desired during these four months, but I was able to prevent them doing anything I did not desire, or undoing anything that I had already succeeded in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... might well have passed for that fair garden to which Boccaccio's fine ladies and gallant cavaliers fled when the plague raged in Florence, or for the scene on which the hapless Francesca looked when she read the story of Lancelot that led to her own undoing. Some such fancies as these passed through the crannies of Stretton's mind while he seemed to be listening to Mr. Heron's mildly-pedantic allocutions, and absorbed in the consideration of mediaeval art. Mr. Heron was in raptures with ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... those blue eyes of his which could be by turns so fierce, so unrelenting, and—did she not know it to her heart's undoing?—so unutterably tender, besought her. But, for once, they awakened no response. She felt cold—quite ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... undoing others,- Long time since the tale began. You would not live to wrong your brothers: Oh lad, you died as fits ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... the division. In the railroad life clearly defined plans are often too deeply laid to fathom, and it was impossible for even so acute a man as Sinclair to realize that he was not the victim of an accident, but that he must look to his own record for the real explanation of his undoing. He was not the only man to suffer in the shake-out that took place under the new superintendent; but he seemed the only one unable to realize that Bucks, patient and long-suffering, had put McCloud into the mountain ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... up his head, gave a loud snort and blew his breath through his nose with a whistling sound, then crashed off through the forest. This fact led Black Bruin to surmise that he was afraid of him, and nearly resulted in his undoing. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... had accomplished her object of undoing the door in spite of the old man's exertions, and Feemy entered weary and worn, soiled with the road, and pale and wan in spite of the hectic flush which reddened a portion ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... exactly opposite to the coat of arms, that intended for the Renaissance chest. It was not finished; Gorju was still working at it, jointing the panels in the bakehouse, squaring them or undoing them. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... coast in summer on "feather-voyages." The feathers sought were those of the Labrador Duck and the Eider. These adventurous bird pirates secured their booty either by killing the birds or taking the down from the nests. The commercializing of the Labrador Duck meant its undoing. The last one known to have been taken was killed by a hunter near Long Island, New York, in 1875. Forty-two of these birds only are preserved in the ornithological collections ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... soon surrounded by a set of young men and women who made use of her favor and took advantage of her influence; the result was the formation of a regular Polignac set, almost all questionable persons, but an exclusive circle, permitting no division of favor, and undoing all who endeavored to rival them. This coterie of favorites may be said to have caused Marie Antoinette as much unpopularity and contributed as much to her ruin, and even to that of royalty, as did any other cause originating at court. Mme. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... ever have looked for Waldemar von Oldenbach in the person of that swarthy, unkempt laborer, if it had not been for the sharp eyes of Sahwah the Sunfish, who noticed everything, and never forgot anything she saw. Her remembering the peculiar gesture of the artist had been his undoing. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... leafy arms above. ALL: River, river, little river, May thy loving prosper ever! Heaven speed thee, poplar tree, May thy wooing happy be. GENERAL: Yet, the breeze is but a rover, When he wings away, Brook and poplar mourn a lover Sighing,"Well-a-day!" MEN: Well-a-day! GENERAL: Ah! the doing and undoing, That the rogue could tell! When the breeze is out a-wooing, Who can ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... D. Bryzelius (who severed his connection with the Moravians in 1760, became a member of the Pennsylvania Synod, and in 1767 was ordained by the Bishop of London). Unionism paved the way, and naturally led to the final undoing of the Lutheran Swedes in Delaware. It was but in keeping with the unionism advised from Sweden, practised in Delaware, and indulged in to the limit by himself, when Provost Wrangel gave the final coup de grace to the first Lutheran ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... Giannoli said to me, "and I love him as such, and as a man I admire him. But his doctrines are noxious; in time of Revolution they would prove fatal to our Cause; they would be the undoing of all the work for which we have suffered and fought. Organise a Revolution, indeed! You might as well attempt to organise a tempest and to marshal the elements into order! I know Bonafede to be above personal ambition, but, take ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... was not forced upon him. In point of fact he is one of the most home-loving, peaceful animals I have known. He is the original home-body and if the market where he is forced to seek supplies is not near enough to his home he moves the home nearer the market. In that often lies his undoing. His safety is in the woodland border or in the far pasture stone wall. There if he would content himself with aromatic barks and wild pasture herbs he might dwell unharmed of man, who is his chief enemy. But he loves the clover field, and often his ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... above the bridges of Nantes on 26th of October, 1440. Without inquiring, with M. Salomon Reinach, whether the Marshal committed the crimes for which he was condemned, or whether his wealth, coveted by a greedy prince, did not in some degree contribute to his undoing, there is nothing in his life that resembles what we find in Bluebeard's; this alone is enough to prevent our confusing them or merging the ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... her baby, and you would have said wonderful platitudes about the beauty of a mother's love. And yet the shameful hurt she did to her child can never be undone. Her undisciplined love was the cause of the child's undoing. ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... child, look with Thine own compassion, we beseech Thee, upon souls before Thee in any peculiar difficulty. Our mortal life is full of sin, it is also full of the misconception of virtue. Do Thou clear the understanding, O Lord, of such as would interpret Thy will to their own undoing; do Thou teach them that as happiness may reside in chastening, so chastening may reside in happiness. And though such stand fast to their hurt, do Thou grant to them in Thine own way, which may not be our way, a safe issue out of the ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... see kindling in my face, that I was not at all pleased with the vows you made me, to endeavour to obey me, and I then even wished you would obstinately have denied obedience to my just commands; have pursued your criminal flame, and have left me raving on my undoing: for when you were gone, and I had leisure to look into my heart, alas! I found, whether you obliged or not, whether love or honour were preferred, I, unhappy I, was either way inevitably lost. Oh! what pitiless god, fond of his wondrous ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Uncle's (I strongly suspect) on Coeleb's errand. The rest of us had no weapon of any sort to combat time with, and for four whole days I sat counting the drops of rain that fell from the ceiling into a bowl beneath, or in burbling the chain of my watch for the pleasure of undoing it. 'Oh, Plato! what tasks for a philosopher!' At length in a frenzy of ennui I mounted a brute of a horse that could do nothing but trot, and rode till I was ready to drop from the saddle—just for diversion. I left my companions wondering when it would be fair; ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... this, as you will be undoing the good results of your summer's rest. I believe your heart is as sound as your watch was when you went on your memorable slide [On the Piz Morteratsch; "Hours of Exercise in the Alps" by J. Tyndall chapter ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... will, holding now the base, now the neck, to the window, and you will find that the bees will turn twenty times with it, so as always to face the light. It is their love of the light, it is their very intelligence, that is their undoing in this experiment of the English savant. They evidently imagine that the issue from every prison must be there where the light shines clearest; and they act in accordance, and persist in too logical action. To them glass is a supernatural mystery they never have ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... have been torn to pieces in five minutes by the Indian curs which came howling round him, had not an old woman come to the rescue and driven them away. With the help of her grand-son—a little naked creature, just able to walk, or rather to stagger—she dragged him to her tent, and, undoing the line that fastened his mouth, offered ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... she could scarcely stand. His unmoved certainty was terrifying. "Your father was a very popular man. His vanity was his undoing. Juliet was too smart to let him throw away her money, so rather than lose his reputation as a good sport, rather than not keep up his end, he looked elsewhere for the needful, and he came to me, not once, but many times. ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... linen-lapped one, Leek-sea-bearing goddess, Hawk-keen out of heaven Shone all bright upon me; But that eyelid's moonbeam Of gold-necklaced goddess Her hath all undoing Wrought, and me made ...
— The Story Of Gunnlaug The Worm-Tongue And Raven The Skald - 1875 • Anonymous
... wounded in his egotism and disappointed in his first passionate yearning for a mate is likely to forget, that he had brought it on himself, that Sophie had not encouraged him, nor lured him to his undoing, nor given him aught to nourish the illusion that she was his ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the Church's troubles in Scotland was still far off. No sooner had the constitution of 1592, which promised to secure her peace and liberty, been set down in the statute-book, than the forces of reaction, headed by the Crown, began to work for the undoing of it; and the Church was to pass through a century of almost continuous struggle and of many and bitter disappointments—a century which had great part in the making of Scotland—before that ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... to royal proclamations, the ruin was general among some classes. Elizabeth issued more than one proclamation against "the excess of apparel!" and among other evils which the government imagined this passion for dress occasioned, it notices "the wasting and undoing of a great number of young gentlemen, otherwise serviceable; and that others, seeking by show of apparel to be esteemed as gentlemen, and allured by the vain show of these things, not only consume their goods and lands, but also run into ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... where the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off into swamps to the sad undoing of several ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... mind were quite made up: "I don't mean to interfere if I can help it, but I can't persecute Esther, if it is going to make her unhappy. As it is, I am likely to catch a scoring from my aunt for bringing you down on them, and undoing her work. I wish I were clear of the whole matter and Esther were a pillar ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... was done in the sphere of imperial relations. The maligned Majuba settlement was an act of justice which came too late to effect a permanent undoing of mischief. All the greater was the courage of the statesman who could throw himself at that time upon the inherent force of national liberty and international fair dealing. In the case of Ireland Gladstone again ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... making him believe that Mrs. Clarke was a guilty woman, but he feared that the jury had been made doubtful. It was evident to him that the Judge had a bad opinion of Dumeny, and had conveyed his opinion to the jury. Was the unwisdom of Mrs. Clarke to prove her undoing? Esme Darlington was pulling his ducal beard almost nervously. A faint hum went through the densely packed court. Mrs. Chetwinde moved and used her fan for a moment. Dion did not dare to look at Guy Daventry. He was realizing, with a sort of ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Barebone had still given no answer. As he hoisted the sail and felt for the tiller in the dark, he was, perhaps, meditating on this momentous reply, or perhaps he had made up his mind long before, and would hold to the decision even to his own undoing, as men do who are impulsive and not strong. The water lapped and gurgled round the bows, for the wind was almost ahead, and it was only by nursing the heavy boat that he saved the necessity of making a tack across the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... books were triumphantly produced, but Master Love, still mindful of his recent tribulations, regarded them shyly at first, as another possible bait to his own undoing; but presently curiosity, and the sight of a wonderful picture of Giant Despair, overcame his scruples, and he held ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... restored 4 loades and of the said 8 great horse oon of the best the iii^rd day after died. And the rest are in so evil plite and lykyng and were never since otherwise liable to serve in the carte to his great hindrance and undoing." ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... was undoing her blue ribbons with a thrill of sweet agitation in her untroubled bosom. Perhaps Mary was right, and it was about coming to the time when this half-feared, half-hoped revelation could not be postponed much longer. For it will be perceived that Lucy was not in much ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... severer burdens. Incensed by this foolish threat, the ten tribes revolted and enthroned Jeroboam as their king and the division of the empire was accomplished. This was the turning point of the nation. It was the undoing of all that had been accomplished by the three kings that ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... that day, one poor man was sold for the price of a pair of shoes. The poor had even no chance to get justice in the courts. The greed for money placed corrupt officials in office and the offenders bribed them to the undoing of the poor ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... up, but she was not herself very hopeful. She, perceived too clearly the martinet in him and the rebel in Cicely. If something were suddenly to throw them together, some common interest or emotion, each might find the other's heart in a way past undoing. On the other hand the jarring habit, once set up, has a way of growing worse, and reducing everything else to dust and ashes. Finally she wound up with a timid but ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their backs, both of men, women, and children, not sparing, in that kind, infants in their cradles; and, by violent courses and tortures, compelled them to discover whatsoever they had concealed or hid, and after all they imprisoned their persons, to the undoing of the tradesmen, and the ruin of many ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and above all, a dancer that would turn even Tumburu green with envy, all this nectar has become poison by the curse of that old ascetic, and the very perfection of her beauty has become the means of undoing us both. For about two years ago, as we were walking together at midnight, on the terrace of the palace, that forms the edge of the city wall, enjoying the cold camphor of the moon after the heat of a burning day, suddenly, out of the desert, ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... were better pleased than they would have admitted to themselves by the seeming certainty of Howard's impending undoing. ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... love of dress is a sin," she said to herself; "although it is one of the rules of the Tug-of-war Society that the girls are to be fashionably dressed. Anyhow, it seems to have been my undoing, for if I had only gone out in somber ugly attire last night I might have the money now for my darling Laurie; and this heavy, heavy weight would be off my mind, and I should not be in disgrace at Middleton ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... daughter! Screams of eldritch laughter! Burning tears thereafter! I've felt the vanity; Still the hope pursuing, The pursuit ever rueing, Possession still undoing The hope's ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... forgotten James until now. He had forgotten the traitor responsible for his undoing. So much was Jessie in his life that James had counted for little when he thought of her. But now the scoundrel swept all other thoughts pell-mell out of his head. He was suddenly ablaze with a rage such as he had never before experienced. All that was human in him was in ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... bearing arms. Dr. Bogi['c] was a member of the National Committee at Knin, and as such he wrote to a colleague at Drni[vs] to ask him whether the Italian troops were coming up from [vS]ibenik. This letter was his undoing. The reason he wrote it was because the population at Knin was extremely agitated by the prospective occupation and begged him to ascertain the latest news. He should have remembered, no doubt, that the Italians regarded this as enemy country and that to make ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... circuit, though recognizing the wisdom governing Jack's change of course. He dared not try to whisper now, lest his hoarseness cause him to make a sound so harsh and loud that it might be carried to hostile ears and be the cause of their undoing. ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... of the talking while he barely listened, being conscious only of the thumping of his capitulating heart. But neither made any allusion to the tender episode on the verandah, from which Jack dated his undoing. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... Clive the son of Thomas, had wrath in their hearts against Barnes, their kinsman, and desired to be revenged upon him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed for an opportunity when they might meet him and overcome him, and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of John Clarke's was Pa's undoing. Pa Sloane could not have an enemy; but a rival he had, and that rival was John Clarke. Everywhere at auctions John Clarke was wont to bid against Pa. At the last auction he had outbid Pa in everything, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not the half or any other fraction. Therefore, if any reserve be made, any corner kept for something unconnected with this true work and sincere purpose, the whole is thereby vitiated and accurst. So far as his arm reaches he is undoing whatever in nature is holy: ruining whatever is the real creation of the great worker of all. This truth of purpose is to the soul what life is to the body of man; that which unites and organises the mass, keeping all the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... reasonable discipline as such, even though it causes him personal inconvenience, because he has acquired a sense of military values. But if it is either unduly harsh or unnecessarily lax, he likewise knows it and wears it as a hairshirt, to the undoing of his morale. Though the man, like the group, can be hurt by being pushed beyond sensible limits, his spirit will suffer even more sorely if no real test is put upon his abilities and moral powers. The greater his intelligence, the stronger will be ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... shears of Aunt Jen herself, a bodice and skirt of my mother's, dovelike in hue and carrying with them some of her own retiring quality in every line. It was all the same, with a shred or two of silk, with a little undoing here, a little tightening there, a broad splash of colour cut from one of my Uncle Rob's neckcloths—not anywhere, but just in the right place—Irma could give to all mankind the impression of being ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... these offenders in language sufficiently polite to escape the attention of the police. The facts may be summarized as follows: A modest, well-behaved German girl named Wulff was brutally assaulted and raped on a lonely road by a negro named Robinson, who decoyed her to the place of her undoing by telling her mother that he had been commissioned by a reputable white woman to secure a serving-maid. His victim dragged herself back to her mother's door, and, half dead with grief and fright, related the awful story of her despoilment. The lying coon was apprehended and ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... were subject, in seeming to be quite different from what things were, now tries to subsist when the things it was essentially contrasted with have been abolished. The intellect becomes a Penelope, whose secret pleasure lies in undoing its ostensible work; and science, becoming pensive, loves to relapse into the dumb actuality and nerveless reverie from which it had once extricated ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... mind is full of great sorrow," he said, "because I denied Jesus Christ. I have not had a moment's peace since Satan made me do that bad work. I did it for revenge. I only want to do one thing with my life: to spend it in undoing this evil that has ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... With precipitate haste, he accepted his gift, and, undoing the dark brown sash he wore, he surrendered it to Ch'i Kuan. But both had just had time to adjust their respective sashes when they heard a loud voice say: "Oh! I've caught you!" And they perceived Hsueeh P'an come out by leaps and bounds. Clutching the two young fellows, "What ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... art. The radiant creature who gives her name to the book is one of Bjoernson's most exquisite figures. She is the very embodiment of youthful womanhood, filled with the joy of life, and bringing sunshine wherever she goes. Yet this temperament leads to her undoing, or what would be the undoing of any woman less splendid in character. But the strength that impels her to the misstep that comes so near to having tragic consequences is also the strength that saves her when chastened by suffering. In her the author "gives us the common stuff ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... that the "expression" precedes the emotion, that a man doesn't run because he is afraid but is afraid because he runs. Sergeant Stokes had never heard of psychology, but to this day he believes that it was his first start that was his undoing. He had begun to run without knowing why, until he knew why he ran—he was afraid. Yes, that was it. He had had, in Army vernacular, "cold feet." But why he ran in the first instance he did not know. It was true he hadn't slept for nearly three weeks, and that his duty as N.C.O. to go round ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... coaxed into all the intricate arts of the gentle game by the woman who is interested in them. Thus I always seemed to have the good luck of the bashful man up to the last gasp, and until I began to turn blue. She would then see that it was apoplexy, and not her charms, which was undoing me. But the apoplexy, the bulging veins and the reddening eyes were forgotten when I sought relief by inserting the first two fingers of each hand on either side of my collar, and with a short, outward jerk, would open the starchy shears that ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... to be longer still before these little hungry mouths would be stopped by the food their father was attempting to prepare. For he was unaccustomed and inexpert, and it must have added greatly to the sufferings of his wife to see his blundering movements, undoing with one hand what he did with the other, and using his great strength where only a little skill was needed. Shenac hesitated a moment, and ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... unlearned, and the stern-fibred little teacher orders out the rack known as staying after school. But what durance beyond hours in the indescribably desolate schoolroom ever taught mortal boy to shun the delusive insect created for his special undoing? So long as the heart has woes of its own breeding, so long also will it dodge the discipline of labor, and grasp at the flicker of an ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... contriveth and buildeth in his Palace like Nebuchadnezzar, wet and dry, day and night, not showing the least sign of Favour to his People. Who oftentimes by such needless Imployments, are Letted from the seasonable times of Ploughing and Harvest, to their great prejudice, and sometimes utter undoing. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... the narrow stairs, they were soon on the floor above, and were happy to find the door of the Tuscarora's prison fastened without, as they had left it; this precaution having been taken as a salutary assistance to O'Hearn's sagacity. Undoing these fastenings, the serjeant stepped aside to allow his superior to precede him, as became their respective stations. The captain advanced, holding the lantern before him, and found an empty room. Both Nick and Mike were gone, though it was not easy to discover by what means they ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... prevailed. "My Lady A.'s behaviour," wrote Mrs. Delany,[136] "and some more wives' behaviour of the same stamp, has so disgraced matrimony that I am not surprised the men are afraid of it; and if we consider the loose morals of the men, it is strange the women are so easily won to their own undoing." Mrs. Delany, while a young married woman, although she was known to be of a virtuous character, was subjected to licentious attacks which fell little short of violence. It is hardly necessary to comment on the hard drinking and the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... which even those who have all the advantages of a good parentage and a careful training find it hard enough to make their way. Sometimes, it is true, the passionate love of the deserted mother for the child which has been the visible symbol and the terrible result of her undoing stands between the little one and all its enemies. But think how often the mother regards the advent of her child with loathing and horror; how the discovery that she is about to become a mother affects her like a nightmare; ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... see, seemed at an end for both of us. I had no mother to help me, and my brother Elphinstone's best friend wouldn't call him the man to advise in such a business. Moreover, where was the use of advice? The thing was done, past undoing. . . Oh," Miss Sally went on, "you are not to think I broke my heart over it. As I've tried to explain, I was disgusted rather: I loathed the man, and—and—well, this is not the history of Sally Breward, so once more ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... began undoing their fishing tackle, and soon the quartet were fishing as if their lives depended on what they caught that afternoon. And the strangest part about it was that nobody—not even the girls—said a word! Silence reigned supreme. So, although Dorothy had triumphed ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... said her father, taking something from his pocket. Like light she flashed out from under the cloud and was at his side in an instant, dimpling, smiling, and twinkling with expectation, her black eyes as quick and restless as her father was deliberate and slow in undoing a dainty parcel. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... of the rivalry between Hughie and Foxy is preserved in John Craven's second letter to his friend Edward Maitland. The letter also gives an account of the master's own undoing—an undoing which bore fruit to the end ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... and the latter well pounded. Roll the meat up in a cloth as tightly as possible, in the same shape as shown in the engraving; bind it firmly with broad tape, and boil it gently for 6 hours. Immediately on taking it out of the pot, put it under a good weight, without undoing it, and let it remain until cold. This dish is a very nice addition ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... governor's ball, that she was the crown of all. I verily believe that never since the world was made, not even that beautiful first woman who comprehended in herself all those witcheries of her sex which have been ever since to our rapture and undoing, not even Eve when Adam first saw her in Paradise, nor Helen, nor Cleopatra, nor any of those women whose faces have made powers of them and given them niches in history, were as beautiful as Mary Cavendish that night. And I doubt if it were because she was beheld by the eyes ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... as I reached this box a vivid flash of lightning revealed its interior, and there, bolt upright, stood a tall Spanish grenadier, with his musket resting in a corner of the hut, close to his hand. I realised instantly that the briefest period of hesitation now meant our undoing; for as I had seen the soldier, he had also undoubtedly seen me; so the man no sooner stood revealed before me than, with one bound, I was in the sentry-box with him, one hand grasping his throat to prevent him from crying out, while with the other I seized his musket and passed it out to the ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... contact with that which has neither the status of the one nor the other at heart, except that beauty or high estate be ready ministers of a rapacity calculated sooner or later to bring about its own terrible undoing. ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... accomplish by spreading all the fruits of my education and my familiarity with refinement before her? What did I accomplish by my mastery of mind? I accomplished my undoing! You need not ask how. I will tell you. I made this healthy, glowing Irish lass believe in the beauty of character which I insisted she possessed. I made her believe that she was a noble creature and that she was capable of fine womanly unselfishness. It was like the influence ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... have long suspected thee to be what thou art, yet for lack of proof spoke not of it to my mistress. But now thy vileness is so clearly shown that I shall in no sort conceal it; and thou, foul renegade, who hast wrought such shame in this house by the undoing of this poor wench, if it were not for the fear of God, I would e'en cudgel thee where thou liest. Get up, in the devil's name, get up, for methinks even ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... that a woman of her beauty, good sense, and education (for she had a large portion of each), could be reduced to such an infamous and miserable way of life, she answered with a sigh, "These very advantages were the cause of my undoing." This remarkable reply inflamed my curiosity to such a degree, that I begged she would favour me with the particulars of her story, and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... opening the window, and pushing the sash carefully back out of the way. While climbing in through the opening thus made, they did not wish to thrust a foot against the glass, and cause a smash that might be their undoing; oh! trust that shrewd general, Nick Lang, for looking out against any such accidents; he had been in this business a long time now, and understood all the ins ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... advance of his enemies, in spite of the flight of his companions in arms. He was a fine young man, and from his style of dress and general appearance was evidently of respectable family. I stooped down, and, undoing the grasp with which the dead man's fingers held the fusee, took possession of it and ran after my companions. Still, as I hurried on, the look worn by the features of the dead officer haunted me. I felt as if I had been depriving ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Circe-breasted pillows that supported his head were his undoing. The morning after Shan Tung's visit he awoke to find the sun flooding in through the eastern window of his room, The warmth of it as it fell full in his face, setting his eyes blinking, told him it was too late. He guessed it ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... so simple an affair with me as it is with the birds; would that it were! I had to spend half a day packing, and another half undoing the work. I had to secure another temporary home, where certain conveniences to which we human beings are slaves should not be lacking, and with a family one could endure under the same roof. All this must needs be settled before I could call on my new neighbors. ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... Switzerland, where it justly belonged, and put under the care of the Netherlands. This has provoked much ill feeling in Switzerland, and there is especial astonishment at the fact that when Beldiman moved an amendment undoing this unjust arrangement it was, by some misunderstanding lost, and that therefore there has been perpetuated what seems much like an injustice against Switzerland. I promised to exert myself to have the matter rectified so far as the American delegation was concerned, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... upon so hazardous an adventure. Internal troubles, revolutionary intrigues, incomplete armaments, inadequate means of communication—all these reasons would compel the Russian Government to be an impotent spectator of Serbia's undoing. The same confidence reigned in the German and Austrian capitals as regards, not the French army, but the spirit prevailing among ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... would soon have been set free, as there was a physician who ascribed the death of the unfortunate collector to a hemorrhage. But his wealth, his confidence in the law, and his hatred of everything that was not legal and just, wrought his undoing. In spite of my repugnance to asking for mercy from any one, I applied personally to the Captain-General—the predecessor of our present one—and urged upon him that there could not be anything of the filibuster about a man who took up with all the Spaniards, even ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... upon his brows cast a deep shadow over his features. But his voice was peculiarly melodious and persuasive, and there was a nameless attraction about him that Cuthbert was quick to feel. Others in the days to follow felt it to their own undoing, but of that the lad knew nothing. He only wished to retain the good opinion this stranger seemed to have ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of the hanger, and arming himself with his lantern and his old sack, he set out on what, in ordinary weather, would have been a twenty minutes' errand. He could not have locked his door without undoing his well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his way to the Stone-pits on such a night as this? and why should he come on this particular night, when he had never ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... enslaved. My consideration for the welfare of our women exceeds that for our men, because man is so constituted as to be more able to take care of himself." So much was this old prehistoric chief away ahead of his dark, heathen times. But this masculine weakness of his was nearly his undoing with his warriors, ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... so young, so young— And must so early die! Fair was I too, and that was my undoing. My love is now afar, he then was nigh; Tom lies the garland, the fair blossoms strew'd. Nay, seize me not with hand so rude! Spare me! What harm have I e'er done to thee? Oh let me not in vain implore! I ne'er have seen thee in my ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the light, and came to sleep by my side. It would have been comparatively easy, when all the men had fallen asleep, to slip from under the tent and steal away. I had got my hands easily out of the ropes, and should have had no difficulty in undoing all my other bonds; but the thought that I should be leaving my two men at the mercy of the Tibetans prevented my carrying the escape into effect. The Rupun, having risen to see that the guard were asleep, lay down again close ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... construed as a plea for the admission of mutual consent as a ground for divorce. It is desirable, however, to realize that mismating is the real evil. Divorce in such cases is merely a cure for an improper condition. Social condemnation should stigmatize the wrong of mismating, not the undoing of such ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... supper, I allowed him to believe that I had finally decided to go to Fernandez the next morning and take the oath, he ventured to celebrate my conversion by drinking my health in a stiff nor'wester of rum and water—rather more rum than water. That act of weakness was his undoing, for at the first taste of the spirit after his forced abstention he completely lost all control of himself, and could no more refrain from taking a second tumbler than he could have flown. The second naturally led to a third, and the third to ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... provided she did not "carry on" in the kitchen or the yard. And as a fact, Maggie had fallen in love. In seventeen years she had been engaged eleven times. No one could conceive how that ugly and powerful organism could softly languish to the undoing of even a butty-collier, nor why, having caught a man in her sweet toils, she could ever be imbecile enough to set him free. There are, however, mysteries in the souls of Maggies. The drudge had ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the King did owe him about L6000. But I do not see great likelihood for them to be paid, since they begin already in Parliament to dispute the paying of the just sea-debts, which were already promised to be paid, and will be the undoing of thousands if they be not paid. So to Whitehall to look but could not find Mr. Fox, and then to Mr. Moore at Mr. Crew's, but missed of him also. So to Paul's Churchyard, and there bought Montelion, which this year do not prove so good as ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... 'The undoing is my daily thought,' said Louis. 'If I could have tried my plan of weaving cordage out of cotton-grass and thistle-down, I think I could have contrived ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sentiment, no note of transition. As artists they belonged entirely to the new era, and they stand at the beginning of the Renaissance as types of two tendencies which were to prevail in Florence throughout the whole of the fifteenth century, partly supplementing and partly undoing the ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... relieve Cornelia's own distress in the slightest degree. As a matter of fact, Cornelia was perpetually goaded into fresh outbursts of desperation by the tyrannical attitude of her uncle. Lentulus boasted in her presence that he would accomplish Drusus's undoing. "I'll imitate Sulla," he would announce, in mean pleasure at giving his niece pain; "I'll see how many heads I can have set up as he did at the Lacus Servilius. You can go there, if you wish to kiss ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... where my father lives, a lady, A neighbour by, bless'd with as great a beauty As nature durst bestow without undoing, Dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, And bless'd the home a thousand times she dwelt in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness; In all the bravery my friends could ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... have, in effect, been undoing with levels and scoops and dredges what nature did in a mighty upheaval. They are practically tipping the bowls back the other way and so making currents to run down the old channel toward the gulf through the valleys of the Des Plaines and the ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... wonted fashion, he paddled about in the edge of the water for a few moments, then turned to walk back to the shore. The next moment proved to be his undoing. Unconscious for the once of his appearing, Cicely had been swimming back and forth just outside the line of surf; then borne on the crest of a wave higher by far than any of its fellows had been, she came floating towards the ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... belonged entirely to the new era, and they stand at the beginning of the Renaissance as types of two tendencies which were to prevail in Florence throughout the whole of the fifteenth century, partly supplementing and partly undoing the teaching of Masaccio. ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... to which appearances were subject, in seeming to be quite different from what things were, now tries to subsist when the things it was essentially contrasted with have been abolished. The intellect becomes a Penelope, whose secret pleasure lies in undoing its ostensible work; and science, becoming pensive, loves to relapse into the dumb actuality and nerveless reverie from which it ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... too generous for trade. Never did he disown his debts. Tis true he paid them not; but it is an attested truth that he gave bills for them; and twas those bills, in the hands of base hucksters, that were his undoing. ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... foe of the unional government (see CHRISTIAN II.). Christian's contempt of nationality in Sweden is the more remarkable as in Denmark proper he sided with the people against the aristocracy, to his own undoing in that age of privilege and prejudice. His intentions, as exhibited to his famous Landelove (National Code), were progressive and enlightened to an eminent degree; so much so, indeed, that they mystified ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... adapted and calculated to change), 'nothing,' he considers, 'could be more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability to construct an organism at once without making several tentative efforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and repeating for centuries the same tentatives and the same corrections in the same succession.' 'Anthropomorphists,' he says, 'talk of "The Great Architect," emphasising the name with capitals,' ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... To her everlasting undoing, she paused for one moment to stretch her neck at length and eye the new menace. A fatal delay in which the offending object lighted upon and around her head, shutting her completely into outer darkness, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... Longford, three-fourths of nine hundred and ninety-nine cartrons, the property of the O'Farrells, were granted to adventurers, to the undoing and beggary of that princely family. Twenty-five of the septs were dispossessed of their all, and to the other septs were assigned mountainous and barren tracts about one-fourth of their ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... all—as, being what he was, he well might do—could she be the one to bring this ruin on him? Oh, it would have been more kind to let him drown on that night of the storm, when fate first brought them together to their undoing. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... Not far from where my father lives, a lady, A neighbour by, bless'd with as great a beauty As nature durst bestow without undoing, Dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, And bless'd the home a thousand times she dwelt in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness; In all the bravery ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... their leafy arms above. ALL: River, river, little river, May thy loving prosper ever! Heaven speed thee, poplar tree, May thy wooing happy be. GENERAL: Yet, the breeze is but a rover, When he wings away, Brook and poplar mourn a lover Sighing,"Well-a-day!" MEN: Well-a-day! GENERAL: Ah! the doing and undoing, That the rogue could tell! When the breeze is out a-wooing, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... could not in reason wonder that the faith of the Happy Family was shattered and that they mourned as lost the money they had already rashly wagered on the outcome of the contest. The very completeness of their faith in him, their very loyalty, seemed to them their undoing, for to them the case was plain enough. If Andy could not ride the blue roan in their own corral, how was he to ride that same blue roan in Great Falls? Or, if he could ride him, how could any sane man hope that he could win the purse and the belt under the stringent ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... destroyer arrived at Split they were taken there, not as prisoners but as soldiers, bearing arms. Dr. Bogi['c] was a member of the National Committee at Knin, and as such he wrote to a colleague at Drni[vs] to ask him whether the Italian troops were coming up from [vS]ibenik. This letter was his undoing. The reason he wrote it was because the population at Knin was extremely agitated by the prospective occupation and begged him to ascertain the latest news. He should have remembered, no doubt, that the Italians regarded ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... that I want Irina's pardon.—Listen! Sergius Lihnoff has been her undoing. Freed from his fanaticism, his fascination, she will be as dangerous as a baby.—She always hated the treachery.—Before that supper she even begged me to give it up, or to postpone it to Sunday—a day when Ternoff wouldn't leave the offices at his hour.—I am willing to give myself ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... go back to see why, with his chief foe so helpless, Philip II accomplished no more in extending his own power. It is one of the most amazing tales in history. Where he had thought himself most secure, there he failed. The foe which had seemed most helpless, proved his undoing. He had insisted on the enforcement of the Inquisition in the Netherlands. It is said that thirty thousand people perished there in its flames. Yet even with thirty thousand of their bravest gone, the Protestants refused submission. Gradually the temper of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... 'Yes,' said Waverley, undoing the cockade from his hat, 'it has pleased the king who bestowed this badge upon me, to resume it in a manner which leaves me little reason ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... succeeded that of Justin, made way for that of Maurice. For twenty years Maurice ruled with honesty and honour. But the parsimony of the emperor, and his attempt to cure the inveterate evil of a military despotism, led to his undoing, and in 602 he was murdered with his children. A like fate befell the Emperor Phocas, who succumbed in 610 to the fortunes of Heraclius, the son of Crispus, exarch of Africa. For thirty-two years Heraclius ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... were implacable faces. The grins were gone. There was no misunderstanding the sentiments which those men entertained toward a woman who had wrought the undoing of a square man. She presented completely then the pathetic spectacle of a baited, cowering, wild creature at bay. She was bitterly alone among them. Even Crowley of the city was against her. In her agony of loneliness the thought of her kin in the big house on the hill came to her ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... in favor of the Western Policy that he advocated, or in favor of the Eastern Policy, we should have prevented the development of a situation in the politics of the world which ultimately led to our own undoing. If, during the war, however, we had completely abandoned the U-boat campaign, and had made every possible effort to come to an understanding with America, we should, in my opinion, have been able to extricate ourselves from it satisfactorily. Be this as it may, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... the organised conquest of Nature, and I can quite understand that ancient libertine refusing to co-operate in her own undoing. And I can quite understand, too, my father's preference for what he called an illustrative experiment, which was simply an arrangement of the apparatus in front of the class with nothing whatever by way of material, and the Bunsen burner clean and cool, and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... when there was little to do father had time to think. That was his undoing. He decided that he had in the past been an unsuccessful man because he had not been cheerful enough and that in the future he would adopt a cheerful outlook on life. In the early morning he came upstairs and got into bed with mother. She woke and the two talked. From my ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... was silent for a moment. Hasty speech has been the downfall of many; ill-considered silence was the undoing of the luckless ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... to kill a man? But she told him, in meagre outline, her story, and he learned that a great, self-controlled, modest strength nestled side by side with ineffable gentleness in the heart of this young girl; and that was the moment of Roger Williams's undoing, and the beginning of Rita's woe. Prior to that moment he had believed himself her superior; but, much to his surprise, he found that Roger occupied second place in his own esteem, while a simple country ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... gods to mete out to Prometheus a punishment fit for the blasphemous daring of his crime. This council decided at length to create a thing that should for evermore charm the souls and hearts of men, and yet, for evermore, be man's undoing. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... beautiful as the moon, and like it, full of arts[14], and above all, a dancer that would turn even Tumburu green with envy, all this nectar has become poison by the curse of that old ascetic, and the very perfection of her beauty has become the means of undoing us both. For about two years ago, as we were walking together at midnight, on the terrace of the palace, that forms the edge of the city wall, enjoying the cold camphor of the moon after the heat of a burning day, suddenly, out of the desert, we heard as ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... easily enough by a person of your intelligence (or, if I may say so without violating modesty, of my own), but which to the ordinary imbecile would have the persuasiveness of what is marvellous and incredible. He contrived various methods of undoing the seals, read the questions, answered them as seemed good, and then folded, sealed, and returned them, to the great astonishment of the recipients. And then it was, 'How could he possibly know what I gave him carefully secured under a seal that defies imitation, unless ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... action, and never set him in any place of command; then, for whomsoever he perceived him exerting his interest, these persons he always sent away with a refusal, and with less attention than any ordinary suitors, thus silently undoing ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... prepared to accept the authorised form of religion, whatever it might happen to be, and, besides the Howards, Gardiner was the only convinced and determined champion of the Catholic faith. Even at the moment of Cromwell's fall, there was no intention of undoing anything that had already been done; Henry only determined that things should not go so fast, especially in the way of doctrinal change, as the Vicegerent wished, for he knew that unity was not to be sought or found in that direction. But, between the extremes of Lutheranism ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... it was a long time before my limbs ceased to shake. The tall servant reappeared with a huge luncheon basket—all manner of delicacies were emptied out upon my table. Lady Angela was making something in a clip, Ray was undoing a gold-foiled bottle. Soon I found myself eating and drinking, and the blood once more was mashing through my veins. I was my own man again, rescued by charity. And of all the women in the world, fate had sent this one to play the ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... showed me the state of his case; how the King did owe him above 6000l. But I do not see great likelihood for them to be paid, since they begin already in Parliament to dispute the paying off the just sea-debts, which were already promised to be paid, and will be the undoing of thousands ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... made up: "I don't mean to interfere if I can help it, but I can't persecute Esther, if it is going to make her unhappy. As it is, I am likely to catch a scoring from my aunt for bringing you down on them, and undoing her work. I wish I were clear of the whole matter and Esther were a pillar ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... the corner of the room, from which the stairs immediately ascended. 'There's two rooms at the top; that to t' left is all made ready, t' other is mine,' said he, reddening a little as he spoke. Bell was busy undoing her ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was retaining hold of both the hands of the sorrowful young woman. Had they been other than the soft and shapely hands they were, had they been hard and gnarled and large, long before would he, melted by compassion at the young woman's tale, have released her. But her very charms had been her undoing and because of her perfect hands, this tale has grown long. That he might have excuse in the eyes of the other passengers for holding the young woman's hand, Mr. Middleton removed the ring as he had been bidden, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... "This well-meaning gentleman has spoilt some excellent shoemakers, and been accessary to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing. Nor has the malady confined itself to one county. Pratt, too (who once was wiser), has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow, named Blackett, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... a woman's life everything seems so little. 'Tis just cooking and eating; washing linen and soiling of it; going to bed and rising again. Always doing things and then undoing them, and alway the same things over and over again. It seems as if nought would ever stay done. If one makes a new gown, 'tis but that it may be worn out, and then shall another be wanted. I would the world could give o'er going on, and every thing getting ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... wedding-bells; when you had once caught the words—as you would be sure to do from some wide-mouthed grinning boy, lounging over the churchyard rails to see the wedding pass—it would be impossible to persuade yourself that they did, in fact, say anything else. Somehow, Harry Winburn bore his undoing in the most heroic manner, and did his duty throughout the trying day as a non-commissioned groom should. The only part of the performance arranged by his captain which he fairly resisted, was the proposed departure of himself and Patty to the solitary post-chaise ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... of his, now years old, has this day received its crowning victory. This day, when he has faced Nero and Seneca together, may well stand in his mind as undoing centuries of ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... up one batch of breakages and made matters ship-shape than over would sway the Josephine hard to port; when, bang would go something else, undoing in one instant the work of hours of labour in putting ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the past weeks was broken just after sunset by a terrific thunderstorm, and the fury of the elemental outburst covered all noises and allowed the toilers to work without any precaution. But, alas! their very haste was their undoing. The head, blunted and worn, broke off short in the depth of the wall. Attempts to extricate it in the darkness only wedged it in more tightly. With a groan of despair, the wearied men gave up their task, and ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... was forty feet away, now thirty and almost ready to drop. Ten feet more and he would fire, Chris resolved. But that ten feet proved the ambitious little darky's undoing. A concentrated drop of buzzing liquid fire struck him above the eye, while hand and legs seemed splashed with molten fire. Down went the rifle with a thud and with a shrieked "Oh golly, oh golly, oh golly!" a ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... half-forgotten meanings. We have seen that the word tension may be used without conscious connection with the idea of stretching. But if we incautiously place the word in the wrong environment, the idea will be resurrected to our undoing. We associate ardor with strong and eager desire. For ordinary purposes this conception of the word suffices. But ardor is one of the children of fire; its primary sense is "burning" (compare arson). Therefore to pronounce the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... his desire for perfection which eventually was his undoing. There was delay in submitting the Plan to President Washington, and also he refused to take orders from any one except Washington, whereas he was told to take them from the three Commissioners of the District of Columbia: Thomas Johnson, David ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... be construed as a plea for the admission of mutual consent as a ground for divorce. It is desirable, however, to realize that mismating is the real evil. Divorce in such cases is merely a cure for an improper condition. Social condemnation should stigmatize the wrong of mismating, not the undoing of ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... Tristram. So it came to pass that whenever he was with Sir Tristram and looked upon him, he would say in his heart: "So they say that you are a better knight than I? Would God you were dead or away from this place, for I believe that some day you will be my undoing!" Yea; there were times when he would look upon Sir Tristram in that wise and whisper to himself: "Would God would send a blight upon thee, so ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... wooing, In watching and pursuing The light that lies In woman's eyes, Has been my heart's undoing. Though Wisdom oft has sought me, I scorned the lore she brought me,— My only books Were women's looks, And folly's all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... the serpent wrought its own undoing, the cunning of the fox stood him in good stead in many an embarrassing situation. After Adam had committed the sin of disobedience, God delivered the whole of the animal world into the power of the Angel of Death, and He ordered him to cast one pair of each kind into the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... which I sought—reputation. I was accounted the leader of the fast set—the "All Knights" as we were known—and I was the envy and admiration of my followers. But this bred in me an arrogance that proved my undoing. It was necessary for me to be masterful in order to carry off the pose of leadership, but I had not yet ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... presence of Andy alongside. Casper Blue might be a daring air pilot, but with his companion a perfect greenhorn in all that pertained to the art, he would be more or less handicapped. A sudden incautious movement on the part of the novice might prove the undoing ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... also a facility in taking turns out of the hose, which no other but a swivel joint affords. By slackening a single turn any twist may be taken out, without undoing the joint or stopping the engine, while, from the number of turns required to close the joints, there is no chance of the screw being by any accident undone. In order to prevent the threads from being easily damaged, they should be of a pretty large size, not ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... stands higher at Versailles than any here. With the Governor I have influence, for he is, as you know, a kinsman of my mother's, and of late he has shown a fondness for me. Yet you can see that I must act most warily, that I must not seem to care for you, for that would be your complete undoing. I rather seem to scoff. (Oh, how it hurts me! how my cheeks tingle when I think of it alone! and how I clench my hands, hating them all for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shrine there came a voice That said, "It is so, well mayst thou rejoice That of thy gifts I yet have memory, Wherefore mayst thou depart forewarned and free; Since she that won the golden apple lives, And to her servants mighty gifts now gives To find thee out, in whatso land thou art, For thine undoing; loiter not, depart! For what immortal yet shall shelter thee From her that rose from out the unquiet sea?" Then Psyche moaned out in her grief and fear, "Alas! and is there shelter anywhere Upon the green flame-hiding earth?" ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... "There doth come a time," and his voice was low, "when fire, long smoldering, doth burst into a devouring flame. Was I not in the Sanhedrin? Did I not hear? Such fire, to the eternal undoing of Israel, doth burn in ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... ruined me, she will be my undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended for you—it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance—oh, how can I ever excuse myself ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... vessel's side. The whole article, even down to this obvious dash of "sob stuff," was at once Hilmer's challenge to the strikers and his appeal to the gallery. There was a certain irony in realizing that all these carefully planned effects had been seized upon for Hilmer's own undoing. He was working in the dark, very much as Fred Starratt had worked during those heartbreaking months when he had battled for place in the business world. Then Hilmer had held him in the palm of his hand. Now ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... whole night. After this, one could not be so disloyal as to solve it at once. For two hours or so, therefore, I merely toyed with it. Whenever I seemed to be getting warm I hurriedly thought of something else. This quixotic loyalty has been the undoing of me; my chances of a solution have slipped by, and I am beginning to fear that they will never return. While this is the case, the only word I can ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... 'Who is there, engaged in undoing the latch? The whole Chandala hamlet is asleep. I, however, am awake and not asleep. Whoever thou art, thou art about to be slain.' These were the harsh words that greeted the sage's ears. Filled with fear, his face crimson with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the palmy days of the New Shakspere Society in England, and the years of the battle between the iconoclasts and the worshippers in Germany. When Mr. Fleay and Mr. Spedding were hard at work on the metrical tests; when Mr. Spedding was subtly undoing the chronological psychology of Dr. Furnivall; when the latter student was on his part undoing in quite another style some of the judgments of Mr. Swinburne; and when Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps was with natural wrath calling on Mr. Browning, as President of the Society, ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... the tall, leather-clad figure out of sight than a crowd of small boys and youths pressed boldly round the handsome car. Her splendour was her undoing, for a plain, every-day sort of automobile might have ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... empty, exactly opposite to the coat of arms, that intended for the Renaissance chest. It was not finished; Gorju was still working at it, jointing the panels in the bakehouse, squaring them or undoing them. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... still, no one paying the slightest heed to his presence; and he had a full view of the man as the spear-bearers drew up in two lines whose ends rested on the river, leaving their officers standing by the prisoner, and undoing his bonds. ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... trembling hands, undoing the door of her apartment, she made her way into the long, dark gallery, with which she was perfectly familiar, and soon gained the apartment already referred to. The door fortunately stood nearly ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... whose evil deed Is past undoing; yet not guiltless we, Who, penniless, that brave old man could see, Restored to ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... it, which is one; then there is the "cussing and discussing," the hesitating and final deciding to make the change, equivalent, at least in time and nervous wear and tear, to the original work, which is two; the undoing is three; and the final adjusting it to your mind is four. Woe to him by whom the change cometh, but come it will. It can be wholly avoided only by having things done as you do not want them and will never be satisfied to leave them. Of course, the want of plans ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... he had seen; he thought that perhaps the form of the angel had been taken by some evil spirit to lead him on to his undoing. But at last he had another vision in which Gabriel came to him again and called upon him to arise and preach the word of Allah throughout the land and bring back to the Arabs the faith of their fathers and the worship of a single god. And then for the first time Mohammed believed his ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... small, intent eyes, his narrow slit of a mouth, but no desire to love. God seemed to have set his warning to humanity upon each of these creatures of the Devil. Yet they had deceived mankind to mankind's undoing. They had ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... loved life. What was this woman to him, anyway? She was a European, doubtless, a member of organized society. He was an outcast. The hand of every white man was against him. She was his natural enemy, and if he refused to lend himself to her undoing, Achmet Zek would ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his clenched hand down upon the table, "methinks the adventure with my Lord of Essex hath left thy stomach but poorly fitted for so tough a morsel as the undoing of the 'Wisest Fool in Christendom.' Even Sir Digsby, who but now turned trembling toward the doorway, hath more spirit for the undertaking. Hath not Percy touched the keynote of our ill condition? What matters it that ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... have been a thing of swift and radiant energy; incredible that its ruin should be an event of yesterday. She lived in an order of time that was all her own, solitary, interminable, not to be measured by any clock or sun. It was there that her undoing was accomplished. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... between the stolid contentment of a husband and the would-be luxuriousness of a wife, between what Madame Loisel had and what she wanted, between what she was and what she thought she could be, between her brief moment of triumph and the long years of her undoing, between the trivialness of what she did and the heaviness of her punishment. These contrasts are developed not by reasoning but by action, each action plunging Madame Loisel deeper and deeper into misery. The author's attitude ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... sometimes stumble and fall. But mankind is moving toward the light, and such is our faith now in the Divine Intelligence that we do not believe that in our hearts were planted aspirations and desires that are to work our undoing. The same God who created paradise devised the snake, and if the snake had something to do with driving the man and woman out of the Garden into a world of work, it was well. Difficulty, trial, hardship, obstacle, are all necessary factors in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... reached the shelter of the woods beyond without being hit again, and in that place, although suffering intense pain, was able to shout back orders which resulted in the subsequent wiping out of the machine gun nest that had been our undoing. For this supreme effort, General Pershing decorated him ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... past, for in her girlhood she had been the beautiful priestess of Athene, golden-haired and very lovely, whose life had been devoted to virgin service of the goddess. Her golden locks, which set her above all other women in the desire of Neptune, had been her undoing: and when Athene knew of the frailty of her priestess, her vengeance was indeed appalling. Each lock of the golden hair was transformed into a venomous snake. The eyes that had been so love-inspiring were now bloodshot and ferocious. The skin, with its rose and milk-white tenderness, had changed ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... and it behooved the lads to make haste. In the first place they did not know these hills, and, in the second, the professor would become alarmed and come in search of them were their return delayed too long. This was not desirable. It might mean the undoing of the entire party unless Tad and Ned succeeded in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... the stroke might wound, a personality able, on occasion, to commandeer what could not be secured by affection, thanks to an understanding of woman's nature and the imperfections of man's government; and, thirdly, between those personal forces a woman who might, to her undoing, be captured by the force of family and state circumstances, instead of by the man of her tell-tale ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... to have been almost an article of faith amongst the optimates of the Ciceronian period. But there were other versions which hinted at domestic crime. Did not Cornelia have an interest in removing the man who was undoing the work of her son, and might she not have had a willing accomplice in Scipio's wife Sempronia?[469] It was believed that this marriage of arrangement had never been sanctioned by love; Sempronia was plain and childless, and the absence of a husband's affection may have led her to think only ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... thought Sir Ulick: he walked to the window, and looking out, hoped that Harry Ormond would soon make his appearance. "You are doing, or undoing, a great deal here, cousin Cornelius, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... help you against the sorites; inasmuch as it does not teach a man, who is using either the increasing or diminishing scale, what is the first point, or the last. May I not say that that same art, like Penelope undoing her web, at last undoes all the arguments which have gone before? Is that your fault, or ours? In truth, it is the foundation of dialectics, that whatever is enunciated (and that is what they call {GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI}{GREEK SMALL LETTER XI}{GREEK SMALL ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Richard upon a white horse for some time seemed only an extension of her dream. It was only when she realised that he was riding up her bean-row, and partially undoing the work of her hoe, that she awoke suddenly with a start, and caught and tore her breath ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... bush-fighting in Indian fashion, in hopes of checking the advance of his enemies, in spite of the flight of his companions in arms. He was a fine young man, and from his style of dress and general appearance was evidently of respectable family. I stooped down, and, undoing the grasp with which the dead man's fingers held the fusee, took possession of it and ran after my companions. Still, as I hurried on, the look worn by the features of the dead officer haunted me. I felt as if I had been depriving him of his property. ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... was true that, as no woman's disgrace was confessedly traced to him, so neither was any man's ruin—save only in the doubtful instance of the unfortunate Johnstone. He never won of any person, however ardent, more than a certain portion of his fortune—the rest of his undoing Saville left to his satellites; nay, even those who had in reality most reason to complain of him, never perceived his due share in their impoverishment. It was common enough to hear men say, "Ah! Saville, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hair—the thousand ripples breaking up the sunshine—only there wasn't any sunshine to break. Not a silver thread was visible; if there had been several the night before, it was nobody's business but my own. My arms were tired with continual undoing; but, sisters, am I one to faint by the way? No, no, a ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... live a hundred years longer, And should have sons and daughters many, Yet for this boy's sake I will not suffer One of them all at home with me to tarry; They should not be kept thus under my wing, And have all that which they desire; For why it is but their only undoing, And, after the proverb, we put oil to the fire.[317] Wherefore we parents must have a regard Our children in time for to subdue, Or else we shall have them ever untoward, Yea, spiteful, disdainful, naught and untrue. And let us them thrust alway to the school, Whereby at their books they may be ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... opposite political parties. However, I held my own. I was not able to push through the legislation I desired during these four months, but I was able to prevent them doing anything I did not desire, or undoing anything that I had already succeeded ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Boyd, a friend of mine who lives in Glasgow, came to me for a week, and about six hours afterward he said that he had a present for me. He brought it into my sitting-room—a bulky parcel—and while he was undoing the cords he told me it was something quite novel; he had bought it in Glasgow the day before. When I saw a walnut leg I started; in another two minutes I was trying to thank Boyd for my own smoking-table. I recognized it by the dents. I was too much the gentleman to insist on an explanation ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... the bag, James, weary with too much and too various emotion, went slowly up the grand staircase. In his bedroom the first thing he saw was his bag, which had been opened and its contents suitably bestowed. Thus his hair-brushes were on the dressing-table. This miracle completed his undoing. He sat down on an easy-chair, drew the eider-down off the bed, and put it on his knees, for the temperature was low. He did not intend to go to sleep. But he did go to sleep. It was simply a case of nature recovering ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... who, by the remotest chance, might be responsible for Joan's flight. But not only did his impatient heart spurn that slower method of inquisition; but he realized that he was more likely to discover the truth by gathering instantly in one room all those persons whose self interest pointed to his undoing. Somehow, Sobieski's disjointed narrative aroused a dreadful suspicion that ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... vivid flash of lightning revealed its interior, and there, bolt upright, stood a tall Spanish grenadier, with his musket resting in a corner of the hut, close to his hand. I realised instantly that the briefest period of hesitation now meant our undoing; for as I had seen the soldier, he had also undoubtedly seen me; so the man no sooner stood revealed before me than, with one bound, I was in the sentry-box with him, one hand grasping his throat to prevent him from crying out, while with the other I seized his musket and passed it out to the man ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... bench, as he was undoing Madeleine's skates, he overheard pretty Susie remark, without much care to moderate her voice: "Say, EI'nor Martin, that's the quietest sort of young man I've ever shown round a district. Why, seems to me, he couldn't say 'shoh.' Guess you shouldn't ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: "I find it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath. Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... by Bulgaria during the night of June 30, 1913, by a sudden attack on the Serbian army in Macedonia, resulted in its undoing. In order to defeat the Serbs and Greeks the south-eastern and northern frontiers were denuded of troops. But the totally unforeseen happened. The Serbs were victorious, defeating the Bulgars in Macedonia, the Turks, seeing Thrace empty of Bulgarian troops, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... finished his meal, Brady got up from the box he had been seated on. He went over to the bundles he had brought, undoing one of them. He took out a long black dress coat. This he tried on. It buttoned up to his neck ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... in Maggie was Constance's undoing. Why should they not go away, and arrange with Maggie to come to the house a few days before their return, to clean and ventilate? The weight of reason overbore Constance. She yielded unwillingly, but she yielded. It was the mention of Buxton that finally moved her. She knew Buxton. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... man is so constituted as to be more able to take care of himself." So much was this old prehistoric chief away ahead of his dark, heathen times. But this masculine weakness of his was nearly his undoing with his warriors, as ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... cunning pleasure steal over his rough countenance. The strangers were dressed in corduroy trousers, velveteen coats, slouch hats and black ties. Their shirts and collars of red flannel made a conspicuous appearance and caused their undoing later. After seeing them well cared for, I returned to the office and calling Jack inquired ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... doubly denied them should that flame burn low behind the bars of matrimony? Surely it must be some cunning wile of old Dame Nature's—whose chief concern is, after all, the continuation of the species. She it is who knows how to deck the peacock in fine feathers to the undoing of the plain little peahen, to crown the stag with the antlers of magnificence so that the doe's velvet eyes melt in adoration. And shall not the same wise old Dame know how to add a glamour to the sons of men when one of them goes forth ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... France could not and durst not move an inch against us. Not the least, nor least strange, of the changes of this mutable world is to be seen in the circumstance that France should be restrained from undoing the work of the Bourbons and of Napoleon I. by England's firm opposition to the wishes and purposes of Napoleon III. The Bourbon policy, as well in Spain as in France, brought about the early overthrow of England's rule over the territory of the old United States; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... toward the ultimate undoing of Mike Clinch. Fate, Chance, and Destiny had undertaken the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... must go directly back to the top of the range where the guide had left us, and then, by keeping well to the left, we would soon come to a line of marked trees, which would lead us to the lake. So, turning upon our trail, we doggedly began the work of undoing what we had just done,—in all cases a disagreeable task, in this case a very laborious one also. It was after sunset when we turned back, and before we had got halfway up the mountain, it began to be quite dark. We were often obliged to rest ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the police. The facts may be summarized as follows: A modest, well-behaved German girl named Wulff was brutally assaulted and raped on a lonely road by a negro named Robinson, who decoyed her to the place of her undoing by telling her mother that he had been commissioned by a reputable white woman to secure a serving-maid. His victim dragged herself back to her mother's door, and, half dead with grief and fright, related the awful story of her despoilment. The lying coon was apprehended and tried ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Ambassador wished to remain in London was to assist in undoing a great wrong which the United States had done itself and the world. Page was attempting to perform his part in introducing new standards into diplomacy. His discussions of Mexico had taken the form of that "idealism" which he was apparently having some difficulty in persuading British statesmen ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... our undoing, it proved to be all in our favor. Cornstalk's spies had kept him informed of Colonel Christian's presence a few miles from the Point. He took it for granted that this force in the hills behind ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... a resolute attack by Patterson's fourteen thousand could have at least held fast Johnston's eleven thousand, who were mostly little better off in military ways. Patterson, however, suffered from distracting orders, and that was his undoing. Johnston, admirably screened by Stuart, drew quietly away, leaving his sick at Winchester and raising the spirits of his whole command by telling them that Beauregard was in danger and that they were to "make a forced march to save ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... straightened itself out in his uncouth brain. He began to understand. The complexity of a woman's character had been an unknown quantity to him. But he was no further from understanding them than any other man. Now an inner consciousness told him that the punishment of Victor had been the undoing of his schemes. Davia had seen the trader bereft of all, homeless, penniless; and ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... while," said Allison. "You two ladies go up-stairs, and make beds. Here, which are the blankets and sheets? I'll take the bundles right up there, and you won't have any running up and down to do. These? All of them? All right. Now come on up, and I'll be undoing the rugs and boxes from California. When you come down, they'll be all ready for you to say where they ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... wan smile crossed the hard, sharp-featured face that once had been so lovely. "I mean that if the devil came out of hell and called himself my son, I should acknowledge him to your undoing." ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... I could believe that," Alick sighed again; and again Mr. Gryce said cheerily, "Then take that too on trust, and believe me if you do not believe in your own inborn elasticity, your own power of doing and undoing." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... was given the place. Attention to small things has made many a successful man, while a little temper, a little indifference, a little cigarette, a little drink or some other little thing has been the undoing ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... heard her," answered Sir Guy; "but will it prove enough for those who only hear of her from others, and who call her a witch, and say that she works by evil spells, and has been sent of the Devil for our deception and destruction and undoing?" ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... came to Paris to found his banking-house. Moreover, I have been well rewarded for my kindness. When, at the death of my poor Ahmed, the Mouchir, his brother, ascended the throne, the Hemerlingues, restored to favour, never ceased to work for my undoing with the new master. The Bey still keeps on good terms with me; but my credit is shaken. Well, in spite of that, in spite of all the shabby tricks that Hemerlingue has played me, that he plays me still, I was ready this evening to hold out my hand to him. Not only does the blackguard ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... soe soon have brought the busines of this Country to so good effect." It would be a just reward for these services, he thought, to allow him for a year or two to ship the tobacco of his plantation into England free of customs.[254] At the same time Harvey seemed bent upon the utter undoing of Dr. Pott. Claiming that the pleasure loving physician while Governor had been guilty of "pardoninge wilfull Murther, markinge other mens Cattell for his owne, and killing up their hoggs", Harvey suspended him from ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... interference with slavery in the States where it existed, a guarantee the Republicans had already offered, seemed to Seward, to Weed, to Greeley, to the bulk of the party, a satisfactory means of preserving the Union. What was it but a falling back on the original policy of the party, the undoing of those measures of 1854 which had called the party into being? Was it conceivable that Lincoln would balk the wishes of the party by obstructing such a natural mode of extrication? But that was ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... sought were those of the Labrador Duck and the Eider. These adventurous bird pirates secured their booty either by killing the birds or taking the down from the nests. The commercializing of the Labrador Duck meant its undoing. The last one known to have been taken was killed by a hunter near Long Island, New York, in 1875. Forty-two of these birds only are preserved in the ornithological collections of ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... sixth on Wagner's fumble, but was doubled off first when Murray drove a line hit straight to Stahl. The seventh was the undoing of the Giants. With one out Wagner batted safely to center field. Cady followed with another hit to the same place. Wood batted to Doyle, who made a beautiful stop, but with a double play in hand, was overbalanced and unable to complete it. That ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... conflicts, however, besides their material losses, engender hatred, cruelty, lust, greed, and all sorts of other forms of immorality. No one can predict how far such struggles may go in the future toward undoing the socializing process which at best has so many obstacles to meet and moves so slowly. Many forces are at work, however, for moral uplift. The spread of education, teaching men to think, to discern evils, and to comprehend the reasons for ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... his professional instincts, of his practical common-sense, too, perhaps,... at least as far as his own advancement was concerned, and he warned the victim, defeating his own work. This peculiarity of Muller's character caused his undoing at last, his official undoing that is, and compelled his retirement from the force. But his advice is often sought unofficially by the Department, and to those who know, Muller's hand can be seen in the unravelling of ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... spoke was set up within a stone's throw of the General Post Office in which, four years later, he was to give effect to the words he spoke then and to earn his own death in undoing the work of Redmond's lifetime. At that moment no one heeded his utterance, nor the speech, also in Irish, of Professor John MacNeill from another platform, which went, as its speaker was destined to go, ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Tsar's assumption of the title of Generalissimo lent new strength to the legend of the "Little Father." But the forces of "unholy Russia"—Pro-German Ministers and the sinister figure of Rasputin—have combined to his undoing, and now none is so poor to do him reverence. In the House of Commons everybody seems pleased, including Mr. Devlin, who has been quite statesmanlike in his appreciation, and the Prime Minister, in one of his angelic visits to the House, evoked loud cheers by describing the Revolution ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... stood thinking for a little: then she drew something from the folds of her dress, and, undoing a number of wrappings, brought out a tiny basket made of birch-bark. She held it out to the queen, saying, 'In the basket you will find a bird's egg. This you must be careful to keep in a warm place for three months, when it will turn ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... instead of bursting into tears as she was about to do, she gave a hard little laugh and she lifted a defiant face to the rising sun. There was a limit to the sacrifice for kindred, brother, father, home, and that limit was the eternal sacrifice—the eternal undoing of herself: when this wretched terrible business was over she would set her feet where that sun could rise on her, busy with the work that she could do in that world for which she felt she was born. Swiftly ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... been prepared for the preacher. Turner was wedged in the pot, so that he could not extricate himself, and meantime the thick fluid beneath was making a warm acquaintance with his trousers and legs. This unlooked-for disgrace and undoing of the two leaders brought the pitched battle to a close. The unknown rascals, having broken away from their antagonists and seeing the discomfiture of their chiefs, fled up the knob road, while the three principals, Wiles, Turner, Danks, ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... that the spot which witnessed the landing of Hengist became yet better known as the landing-place of Augustine. But the second landing at Ebbsfleet was in no small measure a reversal and undoing of the first. "Strangers from Rome" was the title with which the missionaries first fronted the English King. The march of the monks as they chanted their solemn litany was in one sense a return of the Roman legions who withdrew at the trumpet-call of Alaric. It was to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... it? Riding on a razor, to my mind. Come down, and have a lark," said Osmond; while Martin, undoing the gate, proceeded to swing it backwards and forwards, to John's extreme terror; but the more he clung to the spikes, and cried for mercy, the quicker Martin swung it, shouting with laughter at his fright. Henry meanwhile scrambled and tumbled to the ground, and caught the ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... believed him capable of the superhuman task of enforcing order in Ascalon without bloodshed. Sincere as she had been in her desire to have him assume the duties of peace officer, she had acted unconsciously as a lure to entangle him to his undoing. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... got one in my blanket roll," replied Bert, and before the driver could answer was busily engaged in undoing ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... smile which instantly animated my own latent imagination. And immediately it occurred to me that perhaps, in the humble letter from the wilds of Baffin Land, which I was now opening with eager and unsteady fingers, might lie concealed the professional undoing of Professor Jane Bottomly, and the only hope of my own ultimate ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... exulting at any victory he had obtained over his foes. He was not even dwelling on the strategy and trickery displayed by Aleck Sands and his followers in seeking protection under the folds of the flag; strategy and trickery which had led so swiftly and sharply to his own undoing. It was his conduct in that last, fierce moment of the fight that was blazoned constantly before his eyes with ever increasing strength of accusation. To think that he, Penfield Butler, grandson of the owner of Bannerhall, had permitted himself, in a moment of ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... place after place until nine and thirty days were passed and in that time I had entered every chamber except that one whose door I was charged not to open. But my thoughts ever ran upon that forbidden fortieth and Satan urged me to open it for my own undoing...." ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Cardinal, despite all his apparent humility and self-effacement. He was but a servant and apparently a very insignificant one, yet he governed, and she could feel that he combated her own influence, often undoing things which she had done to further her brother's interests. Twice already, moreover, she had suspected him of having urged the Cardinal to courses which she looked upon as absolute blunders. But perhaps she was wrong; she did the train-bearer the justice to admit that he had great ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... he went, they heard the sound of the door being locked and bolted. On undoing the sails they found that ropes were attached to them, and on examining these they were found to be ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... of an unbeliever being as filthy rags." However, if it were not for the service rendered by the monks, priests and nuns, the Catholic Church could never have retained its hold upon humanity. Its schools, asylums, hospitals and houses of refuge have been its excuse for existence, and the undoing of the infidel. But service with the Catholic Church is emphasized only for the priesthood—the laity being simply asked to define, submit and pay. Culture and character are left to natural selection, and the thought that any person but a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the wicked gods were willing (Pray it never may be true!) That a universal chilling Should ensue Of the sentiment of loving,— If they made a great undoing Of the plan of turtle-doving, Then farewell all poet-lore, Evermore. If there were no more of billing There would be no more of cooing And we all should be but owls— Lonely fowls Blinking wonderfully wise, With our great round eyes— Sitting singly in the gloaming and no longer two ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... agitation may give a livelihood and a certain notoriety to some of those who take part in it, and may result in the temporary political success of others, in the long run every such movement will either fail or else will provoke a violent reaction, which will itself result not merely in undoing the mischief wrought by the demagog and the agitator, but also in undoing the good that the honest reformer, the true upholder of popular rights, has painfully and laboriously achieved. Corruption is never so rife as in communities where the demagog and the agitator ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the murderer, in the fanatical resolve of his latent fixed idea, had recourse to a further expedient as daring and original as the scheme which failed. The second instrument had been the means of his own undoing. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... seaman bearing Ross's clothes cut short the latter's unsolved meditations. Without a word the man laid the neatly folded garments on the bunk—a pair of flannel trousers, cricket shirt, underclothes, and the sweater that had been the cause of the lads' undoing; but in place of his shoes a pair of half-boots, reeking with tallow, had ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... a spectacle, were filled with ruth. Yet durst they not openly commiserate the Prince's victims, for fear of evil handling by his armed dependents, which were set to guard the bodies. Young men gazed at the Princess's corse, for to discover the traces of that beauty which had been her undoing, while the little children would be expounding one to the other the ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... a bit suspicious of the ultimate ending of the affair. St. Pierre had almost no cause for complaint, for it was his own carelessness, coupled with his opponent's luck, that had been his undoing—and luck and carelessness are legitimate factors of every fight, Carrigan told himself. But with Bateese it was different. He had held up his big jaw, uncovered and tempting, entreating some one to hit him, and Carrigan ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... for some reason of his own not at all clear to Malvina, had forbidden the taking off of the coat. But had said nothing about undoing it. So by way of response ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... whole human race. In primitive times religious interest was prompted by fear, and the early customs of sacrifice and worship were established by the group to bring its members into friendly relations with the Power outside themselves that might work to their undoing. Temples and shrines testified to man's devotion and stirred his emotions by their symbols and ceremonies. A special class of men was organized, a priesthood to mediate with the gods for mankind. Children were taught ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
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