"Ruin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dorothy, "is the question we have to decide. I for one am not at all sure what to think. Being publicly humiliated might be a good thing for her, or it might ruin her whole life." ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... interfered with them nor ventured to offer them suggestions. If they chose to allow their heir absolute liberty of action, merely because he had passed his twenty-first birthday, it was their own concern, and his ruin would be upon their own heads. No one cared to risk a savage retort from the aged prince, or a cutting answer from Sant' Ilario for the questionable satisfaction of telling either that Orsino was going ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... suppose that he, in his business operations, ever had any regard for anything except his own personal advantage? Do you suppose he cared how many people he ruined? Do you suppose he cared even whether he ruined his country, except so far as such ruin might interfere with his own profit? Or look again at the famous Mr. Leiter of Chicago! What do you suppose it mattered to him that he might be starving half the world, and imperilling the governments of Europe? It was enough for him that he should realize a fortune; of all the rest, I suppose, ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... loop-holes when this great sacrifice is commenced. On the commencement of such a sacrifice a war may take place destroying the Kshatriyas and even furnishing occasion for the destruction of the whole Earth. A slight obstacle may involve the whole Earth in ruin. Reflecting upon all this, O king of kings do what is for thy good. Be thou watchful and ready in protecting the four orders of thy subjects. Grow, thou in prosperity, and enjoy thou felicity. Gratify thou the Brahmanas with gifts of wealth. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Imperfections as well in those Schemes and Precepts he has given for the Direction of others, as well as in that Sample of Tragedy which he has written to shew the Excellency of his own Genius. If he had a Pique against the Man, and wrote on purpose to ruin a Reputation so well establish'd, he has had the Mortification to fail altogether in his Attempt, and to see the World at least as fond of Shakespear as of his Critique. But I won't believe a Gentleman, and a good-natur'd Man, capable ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... labor, and strive, to be holy in heart and life, and conformable unto Jesus Christ in all things possible? Are your lusts your heaviest burdens and your greatest afflictions, and do you intend and endeavor their utter ruin and destruction? Will no degree of grace satisfy you until you be perfect to the utmost as Christ is? Are you so much concerned for Christ's honor, and your soul's holiness and happiness, that you dare not knowingly sin against them for a world; ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... ladders, the succeeding stories being also approached from the outside, either by ladders or by stone stairways, after the manner of the Moqui pueblos. There is no positive evidence to sustain any conjecture upon this point, as in every ruin the upper stories are so entirely dismantled that no indications of any sort of stairway have ever been found. The ground-floor was divided into smaller apartments than the second floor, many of the rooms, as shown ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... upon whom hope had been placed was nothing but a talker, a man of words, an orator, a wind-bag. France, who has usually led the way in the world's progress, had entered upon that period of words—that Age of Talk—in which she still labours, and which must inevitably be the ruin of ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... let's sail straight away and forget the whole affair. He's only some poor devil with a past, whose secret you stumbled on, and, half mad with fear, he tried to silence you. But you don't want revenge, so it's no business of ours. We can ruin him if we like; ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... said he, 'would cost a trifle.'—'Not much more than the one already adopted,' answered I. At this remark, an unreserved hilarity, the cause of which I am unable to explain, lit up his serious countenance. 'Don't you think,' said he, 'that your project would ruin a great many people?'—'Eh! What difference does it make to me?' I cried, 'since it will ruin none but the rich?' He began laughing again, and bid me farewell, saying, 'Colonel, you will have to remain colonel only until we make you brigadier-general!' He permitted me to press his hand ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... excitement with which he abandoned himself to the slangy and figurative excesses of his talks. Corey had listened with a miserable curiosity and compassion up to a certain moment, when a broad light of hope flashed upon him. It came from Lapham's potential ruin; and the way out of the labyrinth that had hitherto seemed so hopeless was clear enough, if another's disaster would befriend him, and give him the opportunity to prove the unselfishness of his constancy. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... tremendous marches with the invincible Stonewall. Old Jack, as he sat somewhere with Washington and Cromwell and all the group of the mighty, must feel sad when he looked down upon this, his beloved valley, now trodden into a ruin by the heel ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and effort. Czarism had gathered all its mighty black forces and seemed, at the beginning of 1906, to be stronger than at any time in fifty years. The souls of Russia's noblest and best sons and daughters were steeped in bitter pessimism. And yet there was reason for hope and rejoicing; out of the ruin and despair two great and supremely vital facts stood in ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... accessible by railway. The new line, which was to have connected Nice with Digne and Cap, had been stopped short half-way, the enterprising little company who projected it being thereby brought to the verge of ruin. This fiasco, due, I am told, to the jealous interference of the P.-L.-M., is a great misfortune to travellers, the line partially opened up leading through a most wildly picturesque and lovely region, and being also of great commercial and strategic importance. But that terrible monopoly, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... a battle-flag or the call of a trumpet. Such a fury awoke in us who looked on, as never was, and the prisoners had been then and there torn from their horses and set free, had it not been for the consideration that undue precipitation might ruin the main cause. But the sight of human blood shed in a righteous cause is the spur of the brave, and goads him to action beyond all else. Quite silent we kept when that troop rode past us on their way to prison, though we were a gathering crowd not only of some of the best of ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... that I advised the war; He strikes thro' me at Philip and yourself. Nay, but I know it of old, he hates me too; So brands me in the stare of Christendom A heretic! Now, even now, when bow'd before my time, The house half-ruin'd ere the lease be out; When I should guide the Church in peace at home, After my twenty years of banishment, And all my lifelong labour to uphold The primacy—a heretic. Long ago, When I was ruler in the patrimony, I was too lenient to the Lutheran, And I and learned friends among ourselves ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... probably not forgotten that a part of the Cour de Miracles was enclosed by the ancient wall which surrounded the city, a goodly number of whose towers had begun, even at that epoch, to fall to ruin. One of these towers had been converted into a pleasure resort by the vagabonds. There was a drain-shop in the underground story, and the rest in the upper stories. This was the most lively, and consequently the most hideous, point of the whole outcast den. It was ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... account of the children. If it weren't for them I would take advantage of this to be happy with you. At least—no—I'm not sure that I would; not if I thought it would be Bruce's ruin.' ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... freshly kindled fire was burning, and set it on it, in the hottest place. Maria stealthily moved it back while he was searching for the coffee in the pantry. She did not know much, but she did know that an empty coffee-pot on such a hot place would come to ruin. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... drunkenness ruined the bodies of men; Christian clergymen told you that it ruined their souls, and that the saloon was the greatest enemy the Church of Christ had to contend with to-day; that when by its efforts and sacrifices it saved one soul from ruin, the saloon ruined two to fill the place of that one who wuz saved, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... the right one, but that to arrest his motion is not in his power, that every instant is carrying him further and further away, and that to admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is the same as admitting his certain ruin. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Ctesiphon were all passed, there being no time or opportunity to stay and examine the famous arch. But as we halted for the night beside the magnificent ruin, one could but reflect on the ironies of a soldier's fortune. Here it was, long before the arch was built, that the Emperor Julian, marching from Constantinople, had been forced to halt his army, and met with disaster and death; ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... To discover only ruin, desolation, and death, instead of the cheery greetings of friends and the longed-for intelligence of Edith's safety that he had so confidently expected to gain at Sandusky, was so bitter a disappointment as to be bewildering, and it was some time ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... was the result of her experienced mother's reflections. Mrs. Falconer saw that her daughter's chance of the Count was now scarcely worth considering; that it must be given up at once, to avoid the danger of utter ruin to other speculations of a more promising kind. The mother knew the unmanageable violence of her daughter's temper: she had seen her Georgiana expose herself the preceding night at the ball to her particular friends, and Mrs. Falconer knew enough of the world ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... town—hidden by rising ground on the left—to the low-lying railway-station; there, beyond, the eye traversed a great plain, its limit the blending of earth and sky in lurid cloud. A ray of yellow sunset touched the height and its crowning ruin; at the zenith shone a space of pure pale blue save for these points of relief the picture was colourless and uniformly sombre. Far and near, innumerable chimneys sent forth fumes of various density broad-flung ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... doubt it, Richards. Winning enough when he wants to get round you and wheedle cash out of you. I tell you what, partner: Jack's got all his father's aristocratic notions, all his father's pride and improvidence. Ay, and he'd ruin his dad too, if—if—" ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... in him, the love that he is. He cannot let us have our own way to the ruin of everything in us ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... dearly loved sweet corn and he ate until his round, furry sides were distended and he could hold no more. Then he ran up and down through the rustling field, bearing down great quantities, merely sampling their sweetness and leaving behind a wide swath of ruin. ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... here me yet before I die. I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds, Among the fragments tumbled from the glens, Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her, The Abominable, [18] that uninvited came Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall, And cast the golden fruit upon the board, And bred this change; that I might speak my mind, And tell ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... ask many questions of Alice Chick or Nancy Buckler, do he? I'm not blaming him, Lord knows, nor yet you, but for friendship I'm whispering to you to be sensible. He's a very kind-hearted young gentleman, and if he had a memory as big as his promises, he'd soon ruin himself. But, like a lot of other nice chaps full of generous ideas, he forgets 'em when the accident that woke 'em is out of his mind. And all I say, Sabina, is to be careful. He may be as good as gold, and I dare say he is, but he's gone on you—head over heels—he can't hide it. He don't even ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of Roldan, which threatened the whole country with ruin, was only subdued by the most wise and prudent conduct on the part of Columbus; but order and tranquillity ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... sake," screamed Owen Warland, springing up with wonderful energy, "as you would not drive me mad, do not touch it! The slightest pressure of your finger would ruin me forever." ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "It may mean ruin to those who have anything to lose," explained Mr. Wade, calmly. "The whole thing has been cleverly planned—one of the cleverest things of recent years, and the man who thought it out had the makings of a great financier in him. What he wanted to do ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... of this corruption and inefficiency, an event occurs which stirs up the national enthusiasm and makes us feel that there is still left an element of heroism which will ultimately redeem the nation from impending ruin. Such was the Mongolian invasion of Japan in A.D. 1281. According to accounts given by Marco Polo, who evidently narrates the exaggerated gossip of the Chinese court,(127) Kublai Khan had at this time conquered the Sung dynasty in China and reigned with unexampled ...
— Japan • David Murray
... extended to two buildings, then enveloped three, then dragged four (into ruin), and then spread to five houses, until the whole street was in a blaze, resembling the flames of a volcano. Though both the military and the people at once ran to the rescue, the fire had already assumed a serious hold, so that it was impossible for them ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... What he had hitherto valued in his Protectorate was the place and scope given to his own supreme personality, his power to judge what was best and to carry it through as he could, unhampered by those popular suffrages and Parliamentary checks and privileges which he held to be mere euphemisms for ruin and mutual throat-cutting all through the British Islands in their then state of distraction; and it must therefore have been a serious consideration with him how far, in the public interests, or for his ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... much relieved that Miss Dynevor should have some relative to advise with, since he did not like the responsibility of her renunciation, though owning that it was the only thing that could save her uncle from disgraceful ruin, and perhaps from prosecution; whereas now the gratitude and forbearance of the creditors were secured, and he hoped that Mr. Dynevor might be set free from the numerous English involvements, without sacrificing his ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great pyramid, which lies close to the town, and which had been rising before us like a hill during the last miles of our journey. This extraordinary structure is perhaps the oldest ruin in Mexico, and certainly the largest. A close examination of its structure in places where the outline is still to some extent preserved, and a comparison of it with better preserved structures of the same kind, make it quite clear that it was a terraced teocalli, resembling the drawing ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... year it is inundated to the house-tops, lies a breeding-place of fever, ague, and death; vaunted in England as a mine of Golden Hope, and speculated in, on the faith of monstrous representations, to many people's ruin. A dismal swamp, on which the half-built houses rot away: cleared here and there for the space of a few yards; and teeming, then, with rank unwholesome vegetation, in whose baleful shade the wretched wanderers who ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... would see to it that at the opening of the market the next morning X.Y. stock should be hammered down out of sight. Details are unnecessary. You lawyers and financial men understand. It was in his power to ruin or to save me and he chose to ruin me. I know, why, but that concerns no one here. Then, as by chance, he moved a paper in the drawer, and I saw the pistol. In a moment of blind rage I grasped it and shot him. Death was ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... to pass his chair—"the Patapsco won't give me a cent to move my crops, and I hear all the others are in the same fix. You can't get a dollar on a house and lot except at a frightful rate of interest. I tell you everything is going to ruin. How the devil do you get on without money, Temple?" He was spread out in his seat, his legs apart, his fat face turned up, his small fox eyes fixed ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I shall be safe with him—perfectly safe. Gale has been driven away. Pardaloe, I know I can trust, and he will be under the roof with me. Please, do not try to come to me. It might ruin everything. Only forgive me, and I shall be back with what I hope for, or what I fear, very, very soon. Not till then can I bear to look into your eyes. You have a better right than anyone in the world to ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... his uncle says, nothing can be worse than driving him to these resorts, and when he is once of age, there's an end of all power over him to hinder his running straight to ruin. Now, when he is living at the Vicarage, we shall have far more opportunity of knowing how he is going on, and putting a check on their intercourse, if he ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... score:—"Every attempt to transform our problems into dogmas, to introduce our conjectures as a basis of instruction, particularly any attempt simply to dispossess the Church and to supplant her dogma by a creed of descent—ay, gentlemen—this attempt must fail, and in its ruin will entail the greatest peril on the position ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... the general, "I have seen your uncle die in the Italian wars. I saw your father killed at Minden. I will not help in the ruin of the last member of your family. You would only risk life and fortune over there without any ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... falling state; the roof, from which Paget had given his orders, and where he was wounded, had fallen in. The French cannon had fissured the building from top to bottom, and it seemed only awaiting the slightest impulse to crumble into ruin. When we regarded the spot, and examined the narrow doorway which opening upon a flight of a few steps to the river, admitted our first party, we could not help feeling struck anew with the gallantry of that mere handful of brave ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to draw a "ring-fence" round your society, and then to proportion the members within the fence to the supplies. The remark suggests the difficulty. A ring-fence, for example, round London or Manchester would mean the starvation of millions in a month; or, if round England, the ruin of English commerce, the enormous rise in the cost of the poor man's food, and the abolition of all his little luxuries. But, if you include even a population as large as London, what you have ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... and strength. Jean Bevoir had not forgotten the Morrises, nor what they had done to drag him down, as he expressed it, and, although the war was at an end, he was determined to make Dave, Henry, and the others pay dearly for the ruin they had brought to his ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... before she could be soothed into consent. After the news of Ramy's flight she had had brain fever, and had been sent to another hospital where she stayed a long time—how long she couldn't remember. Dates and days meant nothing to her in the shapeless ruin of her life. When she left the hospital she found that Mrs. Hochmuller had gone too. She was penniless, and had no one to turn to. A lady visitor at the hospital was kind, and found her a place where she did housework; ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... and wintry light, that deepened, and began to glow, through lemon to amber and to rose. The angels swam in it, and then the huge stairway leading up to heaven shone with the violence of a gigantic star. Faust fell in repentance before the girl he had ruined and failed to ruin, the girl who bent as if to bless him upon this fiery ascent to heaven. And Julian, absorbed, devoured the wide and glowing scene with his eyes, which were attracted especially by the living flames that were half veiled and half revealed beneath the feet of Margaret. The music of the orchestra rippled ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... this," I said to myself—"it was to hear such propositions as this that I came to Sicily! That Polizzi is simply a scoundrel, and his son another; and they made a plan together to ruin me." But what was their scheme? I could not unravel it. Meanwhile, it may be imagined how discouraged and humiliated ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the Amazing Operations of the "Black Eagle" Promise to Ruin the Firm of Topsail, Armstrong, Grimm & Company, and Archie Armstrong Loses His Temper and Makes a Fool ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... which should be widely read with much pleasure. The winning of money on an immense scale to the neglect of all other objects, to the neglect even of the nearest duties, is the sin of one Argonaut; the utter neglect of money and the proper means of living is the ruin of the other. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... only a man facing eternity. But that was what gave him strength to endure. Somehow he was a part of it all, some atom in that vastness, somehow necessary to an inscrutable purpose, something indestructible in that desolate world of ruin and death and decay, something perishable and changeable and growing under all the fixity of heaven. In that endless, silent hall of desert there was a spirit; and Cameron felt hovering near him what he imagined ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... screamed and mouthed and hissed at him: "Oh yes! fine talk, fine talk! See your own roof in flames if you will; you shall not ruin ours. Do what you will with your own neck; keep it erect or hang by it, as you choose. But you have no right to give your neighbours over to death, whether they ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... rocks upon which the castle stands, he made a careful survey of its outside and finally gained access to the interior, much disappointed to find nothing at all remarkable, though St. Aubin's castle is not wholly a ruin and was once rented and occupied for a season ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... where Mrs. Pickens had stood on the balcony to watch the gray-coated troops pass by, and little Annie had fluttered her mite of a handkerchief, and laughed as the gay banners danced in air, where was it? Burned to the ground; only a sorry heap of ruin marked where once it stood. No more cotton bales came from the Sea Islands. First one army, then the other, had swept over the Beaufort plantation, trampling its fields into mire. It had been seized, confiscated, retaken, re-confiscated, sold to this person and that. Nobody knew exactly to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... be supposed that a Community will be so Attentive but upon the most Alarming Events: In general Individuals are following their private concerns, while it is to be feared the restless Adversaries are forming the most dangerous Plans for the Ruin of the Reputation of the People, in order to build their own Greatness on the Distruction of their liberties. This Game they have been long playing; and tho' in some few instances they have had a loosing ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... was not acquainted with Mr. Bryant, but he was a kind-hearted, large-souled gentleman, who knew good poetry when he saw it, and he consented to "edit" the book. He was not a success in the estimation of Andrews, who came to him one day, by no means a merry Andrew, and declared that the book would ruin him unless one or more changes were made in the text. What was amiss in it? He turned to the "Song of Marion's Men," and stumbled over an obnoxious ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... his mind. Could he not possess himself of them? The name of Orsini would be dishonored if the gambling debt were not paid; and one bold—one desperate step might supply him with the means to save himself from the impending ruin—the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... of Cities, with a crown of woe, Scarred by the ruin of two thousand years, By fraud and by barbarian force laid low, Buried in dust, and watered with the tears Of unregarded bondmen, toiling on, Crushed in the shadow ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... and the two quondam friends worked each in his own quarter in the great Paris. They met at the Bourse, but never did business with each other. Charles never worked against Alphonse; he did not wish to ruin him; he wished ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... in great pain; his bonds cut into his flesh, he was exhausted by the night's work, dejected at the ruin of his enterprise, ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... eyes on the speaker's face with a displeased expression, and after a moment the man turned pale and began to tremble, for he saw that he had given grave offence, and to rouse the anger of a hunchback, especially in the morning, might bring accident, ruin, and perhaps sudden death before sunset. He shook all over, and the blue eyes never winked, and seemed to grow more and more angry till they positively blazed with wrath, and, at last, the fellow uttered a ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... and indeed its beauty impressed me more than ever before; but, as I left the wharf and drove along some of the streets of the earthquake-stricken city, there was a heartache, so much of wreck and ruin was evident. My companion, who was in San Francisco two years before, told me that the renovation seemed wonderful,—an opinion in which I concurred after arriving at the St. Francis Hotel, for there were fine blocks newly ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... traditions, before she began to wash her hands and say, "Out, vile spot!" Sheridan knocked violently at her door during the five minutes she had desired to have entirely to herself, to compose her spirits before the play began. He burst in, and prophesied that she would ruin herself for ever if she persevered in this resolution to lay down the candlestick! She persisted, however, in her determination, succeeded, was applauded, and Sheridan begged her pardon. She described well the awe she felt, and the power of the excitement given to her by the sight ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... him. Impulsive, ardent as she was, Marguerite felt in her very soul an overwhelming fury against herself for her own weakness, her own powerlessness in the face of that which forever threatened to ruin her ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... given up the search for the escaped spy. He feared what the fellow might yet do to weaken or utterly ruin the hopes of the American troops. Halpen was not armed, so the youth had no fear of being attacked by him; but he spent his time creeping through the brushwood up and down the lake shore, hoping to stumble upon the ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... the lovely hands in his. His persuasive voice flows like honey. "I am now surrounded by enemies. I am badly compromised. I am all tied up. I fear the Union League, the government spies, and the damned Yankee officers here. One foolish move would utterly ruin me. If you will take this child you can take any name you wish. No one knows you in Paris. I will have the bankers and our Southern friends vouch for you in society. I will support you, so you can ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... so far recovered from the first shock as to be enabled to articulate, she pleaded her ability to maintain herself without assistance, and her choice rather to starve than be removed. She appealed to him as the father of a daughter, and painted the ruin which would fall upon her own, exposed to the corruption and example of the place to which he was taking her. She appealed to him as a Christian, and reminded him that they had sat together before the sacred desk, and partaken of ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... walking, brought him close to the house, towards which, and especially towards one particular window, he directed many covert glances. It was a dreary, silent building, with echoing courtyards, desolated turret-chambers, and whole suites of rooms shut up and mouldering to ruin. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... consideration. This battle, we learn, is to be very terrible, such a one as the world has not had. Fearful as some of the wars of the past have been, this will overshadow them all in skill, fierceness, number, slaughter, devastation, and wide-spread ruin. It will, in some respects, be like one of the wars of olden times. For in this struggle God is again to take a direct part, as He did for His people Israel and Judah in times of old. Again shall the forces of nature ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... as to appreciate how they would appear to different grades of intelligence, different classes of people, different sections of the country. More than once this many-sidedness of his mind saved the country from ruin. Wit and humor are usually joined with their opposite, pathos, and it is therefore not surprising that, being eminent in one, he should possess all three characteristics. In his conversation his humor predominated, in his public speeches pure ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... I know you to be a rising young man of sound principles, and Mr. Crocker likewise. You are the only ones who can sail. Have you reflected that you are about to ruin ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and left their gods as it were in captivity. After the Albans had evacuated the town, the Roman soldiery level all the public and private edifices indiscriminately to the ground, and one short hour consigned to demolition and ruin the work of four hundred years, during which Alba had stood. The temples of the gods, however, for such had been the orders given ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the murk of heaviest clouds, Out of the feudal wrecks and heap'd-up skeletons of kings, Out of that old entire European debris, the shatter'd mummeries, Ruin'd cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests, Lo, Freedom's features fresh undimm'd look forth—the same immortal face looks forth; (A glimpse as of thy Mother's face Columbia, A flash significant as of a sword, Beaming ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... public money, on his own private account, to his personal and political friends, and particularly to those of them who were members of the House. This profligate business had continued so long that Robinson had finally become a defaulter to an enormous amount; and in order to avert the shame and ruin of an exposure, he and his particular friends, just before the arrival of Patrick Henry, had invented a very pretty device, to be called a "public loan office,"—"from which monies might be lent on public account, and on good landed security, to individuals," and by which, as was ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... you'll believe how calmly I'm going to bed and to sleep tonight, on the night of what might seem to be the ruin of my happiness. I'm glad I've written everything down that has happened this evening. It has got it so clear to me. I don't want ever to forget one word or look of Bernd's tonight. I don't want ever to forget his patience, his dear look of untouchable dignity, ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... him. So goes the story. It is probably much more easily accountable. Few men played honestly in those days without losing to the dishonest, and we have no reason to charge the Beau with mal-practice. However this may be, his losses at play first brought about his ruin. The Jews were, of course, resorted to; and if Brummell did not, like Charles Fox, keep a Jerusalem Chamber, it was only because the sum total of his fortune was pretty well known ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... his home, the Jamaican, dwelling amid scenes of perpetual loveliness, despises his native soil. And not without reason. For Jamaica presents that saddest and least flattering sight, a land sinking into hopeless ruin. Her plantations are left uncultivated. Her cities look time-worn and crumbling. Her fields, which once blossomed like the rose, are relapsing into the wilderness. She does not feed her people. She does not clothe them. She does not furnish them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... carriage stopped at a robber's castle. It was a ruin. The robber-girl led Gerda into a large, old hall and gave her a basin of hot soup. "You shall sleep there to-night," she said, "with me and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the so-called world-empires? Alexander the Great, Napoleon the First, all the great warrior heroes swam in blood and left behind them subjugated peoples, who at the first opportunity rose and brought their empires to ruin. The world-empire which I dream of will be, above all, the newly established German Empire, enjoying on every side the most absolute confidence as a peaceable, honest, and quiet neighbour, not founded on conquest ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... but a fabrication of an excited fancy; it has long since passed away with the myths of the past, and exists only in the nursery rhymes of our literature. Yet in its place a malignant spirit of evil revels in the ruin of the human race; it delights in the crowd; it loves the gaslight, the lascivious song and wanton dance; it presides over our convivial banquets with brow crowned with ivy and faded roses; whilst ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... liberated; and, also, the French vessels in the port allowed to fit for sea: and one, to my knowledge, had sailed for Malta! Why will your highness be thus led astray by evil counsellors; who can have no other object in view, but your ruin? Your highness knows that, although a powerful squadron of Portuguese ships has been since last August under my command, by every means in my power they have been prevented from cruizing against the ships of your highness, or from approaching your coast. It ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... broad, rolling body, and the mixture of expletives and frantic apologies poured forth by the prostrate knight turned the Queen's first ready alarm to irrepressible laughter, in which the bystanders joined to their great relief. Droop alone was grave, for he could only see in this accident the ruin of ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... directors were slower than the public in accepting the doctrine of the quasi-public nature of their business. It was a powerful argument against them that their size and influence were such that they could and did ruin or enrich individual customers, and that they could make or destroy whole regions of the West. Enough positive proof of favoritism existed to give point to the demand that the business ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... are fallen; no laughter rings Through the rafters, charred and rent; The ruin is wrought of all goodly things In the ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... she became dizzy and pale, with the suddenness of the shock. Pericles endeavoured to soothe her with all the sympathy of a parental love, mingled with deep feelings of contrition, that his restless anxiety had thus brought ruin into her paradise of peace: and Plato spoke gentle words of consolation; reminding her that every soul, which philosophized sincerely and loved beautiful forms, was restored to the full vigour of its wings, and soared to the blest condition from ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... the cure of eruptive fevers, but of that of all diseases to which it can be adapted, beside the happy reform it will assist in bringing about in our effeminate and luxurious way of living, which, at all times, has been a source of ruin ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, and knock ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... wait," O'Neil declared. "A week's delay might ruin me. Rather than go on I'd swim ashore myself, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... did so, as the breath came with greater and greater difficulty. His face, that of a demon, grew to huge proportions, bright scarlet. Now heart and lungs were bursting with fullness. Dreadful the agony, dreadful the grudge for this ill deed. Thus I died. Then followed the ruin of the House of ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... there she stood with her lips half open, drinking, and her eyes half closed, gazing straight away over the Seven Brothers, and her shoulders swaying, as if in tune with the wind and water and all the ruin. And when I looked at her hands over the rail, sir, they were moving in each other as if they bathed, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... instances where the investment of a few thousands had resulted in enormous profits. These stories usually get to public knowledge one way or another, but the other side, the vastly greater number of cases where ruin and often worse follows, one does not hear ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... contract. Read it, and you will see that I have had, from the head of my family, three hundred and fifteen thousand livres income. I do not say this to you in order to contrast my riches with your ruin, but only to prove to you that I was perfectly well able to marry your sister even had she possessed no dot. That dot yields seven hundred and fifteen thousand francs' income, at three per cent. We were married under the law of community of goods, which greatly ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... is the chance of an adventure; and when did a Montesma ever avoid an adventure, although there were dagger or poison lurking in the background? And here there is neither poison nor steel, only a lovely woman, and an infatuated stockbroker, about whom I know enough to disgrace and ruin an archbishop. Poor Smithson! How very unlucky that I should happen to come across your pathway in the heyday of your latest love affair. We have had our little adventures in that line already, and we have measured ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... by antiquity and cemented by ages fell in a few months. Mirabeau alone preserved his presence of mind in the midst of this ruin. His character of tribune ceases, that of the statesman begins, and in this he is even greater than in the other. There, when all else creep and crawl, he acts with firmness, advancing boldly. The Revolution in his brain is no longer a momentary idea—it is a settled plan. The philosophy of the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... view from Drachenfels is said to be one of the finest on the river. After leaving Bonn and the ruins of Godesberg, we soon came to Rolandseck, a lofty eminence, where are the remains of a baronial fortress and a celebrated ruin of an arch. I should judge that the access to this place was by a charming road. The ruins of Rolandseck are immortalized by the ballad of Schiller. Tradition relates that the castle was destroyed by the Emperor Henry V., in the twelfth ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... laugh, looking at her with his head hanging down, his swollen face all creased and purple, his hair sticking up rough and unkempt. He laughed, sitting there a degraded, debauched ruin, looking down from the height of his memories upon the gaunt, unlovely child of the slums who was rendered even more unlovely by the very courage that kept her ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... "Have mercy on me. It is true that I have been asleep, but I know nothing about this money. Some one is trying to ruin me." ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... came in from North and West and South, crippled and disheartened, to tender their resignations. To make matters worse, Sloper and Dodge had just got out a large Atlas of Australasia, and if they couldn't sell it, ruin stared them in the face; and how could they sell ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... immense huddle of drifted logs, and the broken timbers of shattered boats, and entire scows, rotting, half-submerged, or warping high and dry on top of the hill of confused ruin. The sight of these hulks, abandoned to the grinding eddies, added a sense of dread to the weary anxiety already felt by the girls. The progress down the Ohio had been tedious; how much more so the interminable ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Union, under which we might have continued to live happily and gloriously together, had the spirit of the ancestry who framed the common Constitution animated the hearts of all their sons, you now, with a persistence untaught and uncured by the ruin which has been wrought, refuse to recognize the great fact presented to you of a completed and successful revolution; you close your eyes to the existence of the Government founded upon it, and ignore the high duties of moderation and humanity which ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... harmless Indians, principally during the life of their commander and also after his unhappy death: therefore what I foretold above has not turned out wrong. 7. And so many things confirm the rule I laid down at the beginning: that the more they continue to discover, ruin, and destroy both peoples and countries, the more notorious are the cruelties and iniquities they commit against God and their fellow creatures. 8. It is already wearisome to us to relate so many, and such execrable, horrible, blood-thirsty ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... uttered by an audible voice, I seemed to hear the words 'William Harland, how have you kept your vows?' At that moment I seemed to suddenly awake to a full sense of my fallen and degraded position. What madness, thought I, has possessed me all this time, thus to ruin myself and those dear to me? And for what? for the mere indulgence of a debasing appetite. I rose to my feet, and my step grew light with my new-formed resolution, that I would break the slavish fetters that had so long held me captive; and now, ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... however, in spite of the great opportunity that I offered you, conducted yourselves like Adam. Upon him also did I lay a commandment, promising him life eternal on condition he observed it, but he brought ruin upon himself by trespassing My commandment and eating of the tree. To him I said, 'Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' Similar was My experience with you. I said, 'You are angels,' but you conducted yourselves like Adam in your sins, and ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... idea of sharing the privileges of empire with the foreigner must already have been distasteful to the average Roman mind. It was in vain that Caius Gracchus, to whom the suggestion of his brother was already becoming a precept, tried to emphasise the political ruin which the spirit of exclusiveness had brought to cities of the past.[480] The appeal to history and to nobler motives must have fallen on deaf ears. It is possible, however, that the personality of the speaker might have been of some avail, had he been ably supported, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... the danger, in representative republics, of conferring upon the military, in time of peace, extraordinary powers—so carefully guarded against by the patriots and statesmen of the earlier days of the Republic, so frequently the ruin of governments founded upon the same free principles, and subversive of the rights and liberties of the citizen—the question of practical economy earnestly commends itself to the consideration of the lawmaking power. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... entire system of education in Spain is in the hands of the Catholic Church, and when we further remember the Catholic formula, "To inculcate Catholicism in the mind of the child until it is nine years of age is to ruin it forever for any other idea," we will understand the tremendous task of Ferrer in bringing the new light to his people. Fate soon assisted him in ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... past, but it hath left behind it Ruin and desolation. All the walks Are strewn with shattered boughs; the birds are silent; The flowers, downtrodden by the wind, lie dead; The swollen rivulet sobs with secret pain, The melancholy reeds ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... terse as it is bold, and as elegant as it is severe; never were the weapons of irony, satire, and invective more effectively used; his impeachment is as withering as his victory at the trial was complete. The authors of the "Vindications" had not only done what in them lay to ruin him in every conceivable way, public and private, but they had exposed themselves to his "Remarks," all-pungent as they were, by going into court and giving opinions founded upon "the most disgracefully deficient dissection ever made." The sore which they ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... statement of doctrine and to permit its imposition on others. This was a use of despotism in the eastern Church introduced by the insurgent Basiliscus, carried out first by Zeno and then by Anastasius, tending to the ruin both of doctrine and discipline. During the whole reign of Anastasius the patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Antioch, which had built up the eastern Church in the first three centuries, which Rome acknowledged as truly patriarchal under Pope Gelasius in 496, and the new sees which ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... do you remember how you wouldn't let me make Godfrey hate him? Angel dear, I'm just wondering how soon I and Godfrey and Penny and this house altogether would go to rack and ruin without you.' ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... the second blow of a steel rod, the marvellous stone parted precisely as intended, cutting the flaw exactly in two, leaving half of it on the outside of each divided portion. The slightest miscalculation would have meant enormous loss, if not ruin, to the stone, but the greatest feat the world has ever known in the splitting of a priceless diamond was accomplished successfully by this skilful expert in an Amsterdam workroom in February, 1908. Some idea of the risk involved may ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... I shall," said my long-suffering wife; "but it's a pity to see a young thing put in the direct road to ruin." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... interest from day to day is very important to trade. So, when there is a sudden demand for loans, a rate higher than the legal one will certainly be paid, and the law violated, if the getting of a loan is absolutely necessary to save the borrower from commercial ruin. The effect of a legal rate is to stop loans at the very time when loans are most essential to the business public. It would be far better to adopt such a sliding scale as exists at great European banks, which allows the rate of interest ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... should and might be set on work, by exercise of like policy and craft of spinning, weaving, and making of cloth, lies now in idleness and otiosity, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, great diminution of the King's people, and extreme ruin, decay, and impoverishment of this Realm. Therefore, for reformation of these things, the King's most Royal Majesty intending, like a most virtuous Prince, to provide remedy in the premises; nothing so much coveting as the increase of the Commonwealth of this his Realm, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... jealousy of La Salle, who writes in 1682: "If they go by way of the Ouisconsing, where for the present the chase of the buffalo is carried on and where I have commenced an establishment, they will ruin the trade on which alone I rely, on account of the great number of buffalo which are taken there every year, almost beyond belief."[98] Speaking of the Jesuits at Green Bay, he declares that they "have in truth the key to the beaver country, where a brother blacksmith that they have and ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner
... almost equally familiar. It is this: 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.' This lets us farther into God's attitude and purpose concerning 'the world.' Loving all His creatures, He still saw that they were involved in ruin brought on by sin. If He brought them to Himself—the only event that could satisfy love—it must be by a great and costly Redemption. One emanating from Himself must be projected into the ruin and death of the world and come back to Him, spotless and unsullied, bringing with ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... and what she works out both England and the United States will bless; but with as many British born in her boundaries anchored to freehold of land as made England great in the days of Queen Elizabeth, unless history reverse itself and fate make of facts dice tossed to ruin by malignant furies, then Canada's destiny can be only ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... but steps came along the road as Bertie checked and pacified the gelding. Then Billy appeared by the wheel. "Poor Billy fell out," he said mildly. He held something up, which Bertie took. It had been Billy's straw hat, now a brimless fabric of ruin. Except for smirches and one inexpressible rent which dawn revealed to Bertie a little later, there were no further injuries, and Billy got in and took his seat ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... must know that toward the end of the nineteenth century the villages were almost destroyed, unless where they became mere adjuncts to the manufacturing districts, or formed a sort of minor manufacturing districts themselves. Houses were allowed to fall into decay and actual ruin; trees were cut down for the sake of the few shillings which the poor sticks would fetch; the building became inexpressibly mean and hideous. Labour was scarce; but wages fell nevertheless. All the small ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... a class war is nothing new: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.'' In these struggles the fight "each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... it will smooth matters vastly; though to tell the truth she 'll need all her courage to face you, for she considers you an agent of the foul fiend. She does n't see why you should have come here and set me by the ears: you are made to ruin ingenuous youths and desolate doting mothers. I leave it to you, personally, to answer these charges. You see, what she can't forgive—what she 'll not really ever forgive—is your taking me off to Rome. Rome is an evil word, in my mother's vocabulary, to be said in a whisper, as you 'd ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... distance down it a number of men were engaged in conflict; two of these, hearing the footsteps, turned round, and with a savage oath, seeing that the new-comers were but lads, fell upon them, thinking to cut them down without difficulty. Their over- confidence proved their ruin. Edgar caught the descending blow on his sword, close up to the hilt, and as his opponent raised his arm to repeat the stroke, ran him ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... merchant, when he struck grog from the list of the expenses of his ship, had been obliged to substitute as much coffee, or chocolate, as would give each man a pot-full when he came off the topsail yard, on a stormy night,— I fear Jack might have gone to ruin ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... scheme for the abolition of lay-patronage, which was favoured by the Convention, and predicted an age of confiscation. The "Barebones Parliament," as the assembly was styled in derision, was charged with a design to ruin property, the Church, and the law, with enmity to knowledge, and a blind and ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... I realized that I didn't want her to. But she was not Dallisa and she could not sit in cold dignity while her world fell into ruin. Miellyn must fight for the one ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... What for? It is said that the chaise in which you brought Miss Ashleigh back to her home was hired in a village within an easy reach of Mr. Margrave's lodging—of Mr. Margrave's yacht. I rejoice that you saved the poor girl from ruin; but her good name is tarnished; and if Anne Ashleigh, whom I sincerely pity, asks me my advice, I can but give her this: 'Leave L——, take your daughter abroad; and if she is not to marry Mr. Margrave, marry her as quietly and as quickly as possible ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of rain in Fezzan and Sockna is compensated for by the abundance of springs. These rains in The Mountains will establish the rule of the Turks. It is only a question of provisions. The want of rain for several years has brought Tripoli to the verge of ruin, and the Sultan is tired of supporting this Regency. If a few good harvests come, Tripoli will support itself. Wrote to Mr. Gagliuffi by this caravan, to tell him where I was on the 30th of March! He expects me by this time to be at Tripoli. We are ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... The Army will now go to rack and ruin. I am a plain citizen of the United States. I expect to ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... would be taken away, and with it the principal check that the public had upon the crown." And he urged "the members of that House, as the guardians of the constitution, to stand forward and preserve it from ruin, to maintain that equilibrium between the three branches of the Legislature, and that independence without which the constitution could no longer exist," and with this view to resolve "that to report any opinion, or pretended opinion, of his ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... which still survive, while the more modern constructions of the Conquerors have been buried in ruins. The hand of the Conquerors, indeed, has fallen heavily on these venerable monuments, and, in their blind and superstitious search for hidden treasure, has caused infinitely more ruin than time or the earthquake.32 Yet enough of these monuments still remain to invite the researches of the antiquary. Those only in the most conspicuous situations have been hitherto examined. But, by the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... in search of Ruin. Parting Tribute to Love. Three Desperate Days! The Poetry of Sea-Sickness. The Red Flannel Night-Cap. A Ship by Moonlight. Arrival in London. The Parks of London. Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. England's Monuments. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... delightful, a perfect companion during those wild, free forest marches—day after day, night after night, fraught with peril and hardship at every step, but—how would civilization affect her? Would it not ruin that grand character, even as it had ruined really noble natures before her,—for there is such a thing as the "noble savage," although we grant the product to be a scarce one. And with all this was entwined ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... whole flock should be contaminated. I am an old man; Miss Glynn tells me that you are a young man. I can therefore speak quite frankly. I believe the practice to which I have alluded is inhuman and unchristian, and has brought about the ruin of many an Irish girl. I have been able to rescue some from the streets, and, touched by their stories, I have written frequently to the priest of the parish pointing out to him that his responsibility is not merely local, and does not end as soon as the woman has passed the boundary of his parish. ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Venetians wrought the greatest havoc, how many and what columns were thrown down; how high and thick and massive they were; what parts of the marvellous ruin that High Robber Chief Lord Elgin stole and carted off to London, and still keeps the British Museum acting as "fence"; how wide and long and spacious was the superb chamber that held the statue the gods loved—none of these things interested me—do not now. What I saw ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... terror: a strange idea has infected humanity that the skeleton is typical of death. A man might as well say that a factory chimney was typical of bankruptcy. The factory may be left naked after ruin, the skeleton may be left naked after bodily dissolution; but both of them have had a lively and workmanlike life of their own, all the pulleys creaking, all the wheels turning, in the House of Livelihood as in the House of Life. There is no reason why this creature (new, as I fancy, to art), ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... lately at the House. The Government is bringing in its Bill for the Abolition of Telephones on the Stage, and it is necessary for the full strength of the Opposition to be there. As I said in my speech, any such Bill would, to take a case, ruin Mr. TEMPLE THURSTON'S new play at the Haymarket, and recent by-elections have shown that the country was—— However, I need not bother you with that. The point is that I have at last managed to get away to see you, and I want to know what it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... and cannot come Out of the drear and desolate place, So full of ruin's solemn grace, And haunted with the ghost ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... references had been made to a London banker, which had been answered by assurances that Mr. Talbot was as good as the Bank of England. But it turned out that the assurances were forged, and that the letter of inquiry addressed to the London banker had been intercepted. In short, it was all ruin, roguery, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... day. Nothing would stop her. The thing had to be done. Let it be done at once. She would explain everything to Miss Pinckney. She would escape without seeing Richard again. What she was proposing to herself was death, the ruin of everything she cared for, the destruction of all the ties that bound her to the world, the present and the past. It was the recognition that these ties had been broken for her and all these things taken away by the woman who ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... they never let slip an opportunity of doing all the mischief in their power to the hated intruders. Then began that long train of bloody wars between the two races, which have never ceased except with defeat or ruin of the weaker red man, and bringing him nearer and nearer to the day when he must either forsake his savage life, or cease to have an ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady |
