"Self-destruction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... path which the bullet had traveled that interested Britz. The absence of powder marks, the disappearance of the pistol with which the mortal shot was fired, effectually eliminated the theory of suicide. Yet, a man seated in a chair, and bent on self-destruction, might easily have inflicted the wound described by the Coroner's physician. Before arriving at any definite conclusion, however, as to the position of the assassin when he sent the bullet into Whitmore's body, the detective decided to study the enlarged photograph of the ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... infatuation at the beginning, was more than he could endure to think of, and he was charged with having meditated suicide. Perhaps he had already formed the purpose afterwards carried into effect, and may have dropped expressions, under that thought, which to others might appear to indicate a design of self-destruction. He was accused of having said that "he would make away with himself, and charge his death upon his son." His sons-in-law, Crosby and Parker, were acting with the crowd that were pursuing him to his death. Little did it enter the imagination of any one then, that there was a method by which he ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... second of July, 1798, a man at a little old tavern in Bardstown, Kentucky, committed suicide. If ever there was a justifiable case of self-destruction, it was this. No human being is permitted to take his own life, but there are instances in which the burden of existence becomes well-nigh intolerable. In the case just mentioned, the man went to his room and took poison. He was a little more than fifty-five years of age, but was prematurely ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... would be driven to the deed by sheer rage. Failing in this, he resumed his wheedling tactics. It would be impossible, he argued, for any one to know that she had given him the soothing poison. The doctors would always believe that he had overcome his prejudice against self-destruction and had taken the tablets, just as they intended and evidently desired him to do. But he would not take his own life. He would go on suffering for years before he would send his soul to purgatory by such an act. He believed in damnation. He had lived an honourable, upright life ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Craig maiden also appeared to be bent upon self-destruction; and Boots's eyes opened wider and wider in sheer amazement at the capacity of woman in embryo for rations sufficient to maintain ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... for me; death with the degradation of the scaffold. To strike me down with certainty he had not hesitated to end his life—a life which was, no doubt, already threatened by a melancholic impulse to self-destruction; and the last agony of the suicide had been turned, perhaps, to a devilish joy by the thought that he dragged down my life with his. For, so far as I could see at the moment, my situation was utterly hopeless. If it ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... self-destruction as the only escape. He had sought distraction of his moral torments in travel long and varied. Many of the most beautiful, of the historically interesting places of the world, he had visited and sojourned ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... intoxication, of violence, and of woes; "The other the occasion of comfort and of peace. "The one the cause of irreligion and of self-destruction; "The other the devout offering of piety on the altar of God. "The one the symbol of the divine wrath; "The other the symbol of spiritual blessings. "The one the emblem of eternal damnation; "The other the emblem of ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... not safe if I am left at liberty," he exclaimed, frantically tearing his hair. "I have looked at the past. I look at the future. I am miserable. I see nothing but wretchedness before me. I contemplated self-destruction. I purposed dropping quietly over the stern into the water. I did not wish to create confusion. If I had jumped overboard before you all, a boat would have been lowered, and I should have been picked up; but—must I own it?—my courage failed me. I—I who ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... this letter in the summer of 1826, when his nephew attempted self-destruction in Baden, which reduced Beethoven to the most miserable state of mind, and brought afresh to his recollection those dear friends of his youth, whom he seemed almost to have forgotten in the society of Holz and his colleagues. Schindler states that ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... face, the unfortunate victim of play lost all relish for life; and sought in death the only refuge he could fancy from the infamy and misery which he had brought upon himself. But whilst fully resolved on self-destruction, he thought, before carrying his fatal purpose into execution, he might as well do his tradesmen an act of justice, even if in so doing he should do injustice to others. He insured his life to the extent ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... a strange habit of self-destruction, contracting its skin at two or three different points, and writhing till it snaps itself into "junks," as the sailors would say, and then dies. My specimens, on breaking up, threw out from the wounded part long "ovarian filaments" (whatsoever those may be), ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... memorable battle-field the republic perished. The battle was fairly and bravely fought on both sides, but victory inclined to the Caesarians, in two distinct actions, after an interval of twenty days, B.C. 42. Both Cassius and Brutus fell on their own swords, and their self-destruction, in utter despair of their cause, effectually broke up ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... added to it, or erased, all according to the moods that came to him. And we have reason to believe that the sublime soliloquy in "Cato" was written by Addison when the blankness of his prospects and the blackness of the future had forced the question of self-destruction upon him. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... replied she, bitterly. "Heedless of his countrymen's warnings, he believed in the patriotism of Stanislaus. When he saw his error, he felt that he merited death, and expiated his fault by self-destruction. His grave ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... morality, like all things in a world of strife, is fighting for existence, using its own weapons, which are reason and love. Obviously it can use no others, without self-destruction; yet it has to meet enemies who fight with the old weapons of force and fraud. Whether it will prevail is more than any prophet can say. Perhaps it is too much to ask that it should succeed—this insolent effort of the pigmy man to leap upon the ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... missing body, but without effect. When the matter was related to the king he was much troubled, and would fain have had masses said for the repose of the soul of the unfortunate keeper, but the priests refused to perform them, alleging that he had 'committed self-destruction, and was therefore out of the ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... yourself in which you were the winner—by what knavery you best know—the stakes so heavy that, on perceiving that he had lost, the young man cried out that he was ruined, and in his mad despair attempted self-destruction. It is quite possible that you may not have observed me in the crowd that gathered about your wretched victim; but I can never forget the face of the man who had wrought ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... poison that makes its wound mortal. On the old mantel-piece, over the fireplace, there is a vial in which are kept certain poisons. It would seem as if some one had meditated suicide; or else that the foul fiend had put all sorts of implements of self-destruction in his way; so that, in some frenzied moment, he ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shook his head dolefully. "His Reverence has the Talent, there's no doubt of that, but now he's pitted against another man who has it—a man whose mind is bent on self-destruction in the ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... herself, and while we still hope something from her testimony, we are leaving her very much to her own devices, and do not cross her in anything. You will therefore listen to what she says, and, if possible, aid her in anything she may undertake, unless it points directly towards self-destruction. My opinion is that she will surprise you. But you are becoming accustomed ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... detective said nothing of this, and was very patient with the further arguments the other advanced to prove his point and the lofty character of the girl to whom, misled by appearance, the police seemed inclined to attribute the awful sin of self-destruction. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the one hand and on the other a widespread effort to bring into existence Acts of Parliament. Self-destruction ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... exposure of a public death, Madame Roland had intended to take opium in the end of her cruel imprisonment. A little later she chose that those who oppressed her country should have their way with her to the last. But, while still intending self-destruction, she had written to her husband: "Forgive me, respectable man, for disposing of a life that I had consecrated to thee." In quoting this I mean to make no too-easy effect with the word "respectable," grown grotesque by the tedious gibe of our own ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... brought her to me, brought a note instead. It was dated boldly 'August tenth.' It was without beginning or signature. It said—I can repeat every word—'Of the two roads to self-destruction open to me, I have chosen the one that will, in the end, give the least pain to you. I love you. I have always loved you since I was a child. I do not regret anything yet! Thank God for me that I depart without ever having seen ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... all such efforts since the first attempted corner in stone hatchets, or mastodon tusks, or whatever it may have been. In the language of one of its newspaper critics, the "Trust" had been "founded on misconception and prompted along lines of self-destruction. Its fundamental principles were the restriction of product, the increase of price, and the throttling of competition, a trinity that would wreck any combination, business, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... finest points in the book. Has she the right to perpetuate such a race, which will be a curse to itself and to future generations? Would she not confer a boon upon mankind if, by destroying herself, she sweetened the life-blood of humanity? For by self-destruction she would forever cut off the turbid current of the Kurt blood which had darkened the vital stream of the race for centuries. The moral exaltation which manifests itself in this struggle is most vividly portrayed. She clings to ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... all—knew, and lived through the full force of the blight and misery—would persuade me that it all means nothing, and is a mere amusing trifle! Trifle, indeed, that breaks hearts and leads to despair and self-destruction and dishonour! No, no, no—nothing shall lead me to a gamester! though Frank may be lost to me! He will be! he will be! We deserve that he should be! I deserve it—if family sins fall on individuals—I ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tide her over the shoal of self-destruction,' said Falconer. 'But I cannot help doubting whether any one has a right to prevent a suicide from carrying out his purpose, who is not prepared to do a good deal more for him than that. What would ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... thoroughly wicked creature ever yet committed suicide. Self-destruction, when it is not an act of madness, implies some acuteness of feeling—sensibility to remorse or to shame, or perhaps a distorted idea of making atonement. There is no such thing as remorse or shame, or hope of making ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... doomed to wait till the inexorable Minos examined each case and gave his award. Immediately adjoining was the place allotted to those who, though unstained by crime, had become weary of life and had committed self-destruction. Gladly, indeed, would they have now returned to the upper world they had despised, but no such ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... excesses. But there is no man who can habitually study from twelve to seventeen hours a day (his friend Mr. Clarke contracts it to "from six to twelve," but I have Mr. Parker's own statement of the fact) without ultimate self-destruction. Nor was this the practice during his period of health alone, but it was pushed to the last moment: he continued in the pulpit long after a withdrawal was peremptorily prescribed for him; and when forbidden to leave home for lecturing, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was arrested, myself included. There was an inquest; but no clew to his death beyond that of suicide could be obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction. One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that "he was tired of life." His landlord affirmed that Simon, when paying him his last month's rent, remarked that "he should not pay him rent much longer." All the other evidence corresponded,—the door locked inside, the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... only despair and loss had been abiding, and who was fighting a losing battle with these dark companions. The sound of the old hymn, that had been his children's lullaby, arrested John McIntyre on the brink of self-destruction: ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... would seem at first as though nothing but self-destruction could come to that struggling, praying, throat-cutting population that terrorized Italy during the Mediaeval Period. The people were ignorant, the rulers treacherous, the passions strong, and yet out of the Dark Ages came light. In the thirteenth century the light grew brighter, but ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... means to be confounded with churchdom) the antagonism is irreconcilable. Hence all priestdom is in absolute need of supplements to the Gospel; it must have tradition; it cannot give it up without self-destruction. This is not the place to pursue this observation further; but it could not be wholly overlooked, because thus only are we able to account for the sudden change of feeling in a man liberal in other respects. As late as May 1521, he had ridiculed Doctor Eck, Luther's opponent, and accused ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... came sooner than expected by me. I had cast a thought to my understanding that the philosophy of Confucius did not contemplate self-destruction, and had been divided between relief and wonder ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... June, 1814, and November, 1816, and the new ties formed by Harriet in this interval, prove that there was no immediate connexion between Shelley's abandonment of his wife and her suicide. She had always entertained the thought of self-destruction, as Hogg, who is no adverse witness in her case, has amply recorded; and it may be permitted us to suppose that, finding herself for the second time unhappy in her love, she reverted to a long-since cherished scheme, and cut the knot of life and all ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... came in sight of the church where his mother used to go, and then memories of all her holy teachings. Should he find her if he attempted self-destruction? ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... perfectly well that such extreme depression and despair as will change the whole character, and beat down all its powers of elasticity and self-resistance, may be at work within a man, and yet stop short of self-destruction. This ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... mysteries of the Apocalypse, and in speculations upon the personal coming of Christ and the temporal reign of the saints on earth,—a sort of Mahometan paradise, which has as little warrant in Scripture as in reason. Their minds of necessity became unsettled; they meditated self-destruction; and, as it appears by a paper left behind in the handwriting of both, came to an agreement that the husband should first kill his wife and their four children, and then put an end to his own existence. This was literally executed,—the miserable man striking off the heads of his wife and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... desperate fight was to be made against him; that he was to be humiliated and driven from the Democratic ranks. The creed laid down by the Southern senators was such as no man could indorse without forfeiting his political life in free States. Douglas did not propose to rush on self-destruction to oblige the Democracy of the slave States; nor was he of the type of men who, when the right cheek is smitten, will meekly turn the other for a second blow. When his Democratic associates in the Senate proceeded to read him out of the party, they apparently ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... in the forehead of each showed that self-destruction and cremation had seemed a better choice than the gallows ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... of suicides. There are many who in a frenzy of despair commit the crime of self-destruction. It is easy to believe that there is sympathy and helpfulness for them ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... bitter agony of his spirit, come upon him an idea of blood. He himself must go,—or the man. Then he remembered that she was the man's wife, and that it behoved him to spare the man for her sake. Then, when he came to think in earnest of self-destruction, he told himself that it was a coward's refuge. He took to his classics for consolation, and read the philosophy of Cicero, and the history of Livy, and the war chronicles of Caesar. They did him good,—in ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... applied; he has already had his wish, for what torture can be more agonising than to find myself where I now am? So tortured, indeed, have I been through a short yet wretched life, that I have often felt that anything short of self-destruction which would release me would be a blessing; but within these few minutes I have been made to acknowledge that I have still feelings in unison with my fellow-creatures; that I am not yet fit for death, and all too young, too unprepared to die: for who would not reluctantly leave ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... deep is not a multitude of hostile powers, as has been imagined; nor "darkness" an evil sovereign force in enmity with good. In reality two rival principles of equal power, if engaged without ceasing in a war of mutual attacks, will end in self-destruction. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... to note the ascendancy of the barons in the medieval Parliaments, and their self-destruction in the Wars of the Roses. Unless we realise how very largely the barons were the Parliament, it is difficult to understand how it came about that Parliament was so utterly impotent under the Tudors. ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... came to the front, and, rushing into the water, held up the pontoons while the French and some English troops dashed across. But all their efforts to scale the wall were baffled, and it seemed as if they had only gone to self-destruction. While the battle was thus doubtfully contested, Major Anson, who had shown the greatest intrepidity on several occasions, succeeded in cutting the ropes that held up a drawbridge, and an entrance was soon effected within the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... disaster, frustrate the bodily functions, disconcert the organic processes, and lead to mental aberration as well as physical degeneracy. Melancholy is chronic, while despair is acute mania, whose impulses drive the victim desperately toward self-destruction. The chronic derangement of these organs exerts with less force the same morbid tendency. Hence the necessity for exercising those hygienic and countervailing influences born of resolution, assurance, and confident trust, and the belief which strengthens ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... spring in the following year that dreary story of slow self-destruction, into which the narrative of Coleridge's life from the age of thirty to that of forty-five resolves itself, was brought to a close. Coleridge had at last perceived that his only hope of redemption lay in a voluntary submission ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... meant nothing and he had passed it by. Only since he had secretly half-admitted his vulnerability, had he thrown such an anchor to windward, and all his policies were new—too new to hold validity against self-destruction. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... remained, a lover, companion of her flight, being wanting? It was a strange thing altogether, and the country was alive with wild theories and wild reports. But in a few days a letter from Mr. Dundas to the rector, and another to Edgar, set the question of self-destruction at rest, though also they gave loose to other energies of conjecture, for in both he said, "No harm has come to her, and I am content to let her remain where she has elected to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... remark that the terms, "rabble," "disorganizers," "jacobins," and "agrarians," [Footnote: It is scarcely necessary to tell the intelligent reader there is no proof that any political community was ever so bent on self-destruction as to enact agrarian laws, in the vulgar sense in which it has suited the arts of narrow-minded politicians to represent them ever since the revival of letters. The celebrated agrarian laws of Rome did not essentially differ from the distribution ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... enough to take the responsibility of opposing it, it was carried out: Greece rushed headlong into war with a superior power and was smashed. Upon King Constantine, then Crown Prince, had devolved the tragic duty of leading the Greek army to self-destruction, and it was upon his devoted head that afterwards the nation visited the criminal levity of M. Delyannis. Was he to suffer calmly a repetition of the same catastrophe on an infinitely larger scale—to see his country trampled under ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... room with the windows, etc., closed, so as nearly to exclude the light, and kept confined if necessary, in a straight jacket, so as to walk about the room or lie down on the bed at pleasure; or by strops, etc., he may, particularly if there appears in the patient a strong determination to self-destruction, be confined on the bed, and the apparatus so fixed as to allow him to turn and ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... Vincent guessed at once what he was intending to do; it darted across his mind that this might be the best solution of the difficulty—he had only to keep silent for a few seconds. Was it certain even now that he could prevent this self-destruction if he would? But such inhumanity was impossible to him. Instinctively he rushed forward out of the shadow and, seizing Mark by the arm as he sprang upon the parapet, dragged him roughly back. 'You coward!' he cried, 'you fool! This is the way you keep your appointment, is it? You can do that ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... in my path; your son is dwelling in a burning house, would you indeed prevent his leaving it! To solve a doubt is only reasonable, who could forbid a man to seek its explanation? Or if he were forbidden, then by self-destruction he might solve the difficulty, in an unrighteous way: and if he were to do so, who ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... terror at first, she presently extricated herself from the man's encircling arm, and switched on the light. She dared not lie in the darkness with the thoughts that assailed her. Never for one instant before had the possibility of the wife's self-destruction occurred to her. Yet, all at once, how probable, how almost ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... mislead them, or to stop their growth altogether; and the favourite means employed is to paralyse that natural philosophic impulse by the so-called "historical culture." A still recent system,[10] which has won for itself a world-wide scandalous reputation, has discovered the formula for this self-destruction of philosophy; and now, wherever the historical view of things is found, we can see such a naive recklessness in bringing the irrational to 'rationality' and 'reason' and making black look like white, that one is even inclined ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... virtue, its own reward. Indeed, it has to be, for as the Penal Code distinctly states, owing to the impossibility of reaching the successful perpetrator no forfeiture is imposed. But the new law lifts the ban from futile efforts in the matter of self-destruction, and one need not pay the hitherto exacted fine of a thousand dollars by way of a luxury tax on ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... nothing, feared nothing; I simply felt dedicated to my country. What a stupendous joy there was in this unquestioning surrender. Verily had I realized how, in thoroughness of self-destruction, man can find ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... that philosophers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have embarked on the suicide of thought, and that a later disciple to this self-destruction is ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... days Sabina read Raymond's letter again and it now awoke a new passion. At first she had hated herself and talked of doing herself an injury; but this was hysteria bred of suffering, since she had not the temperament to commit self-destruction. Now her rage burned against the child that she was doomed to bring into the world, and she brooded secretly on how its end might be accomplished. She knew the peril to herself of any such attempt; but while she could not have committed suicide, she faced the thought of the necessary risks. ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... incurred? The "orthodox" not merely admit, but maintain it. Their creed justifies it by the doctrine, that his death was a "sacrifice" so pleasing to God, as to expiate the sins of the world. This honestly meets the objections to self-destruction; for how better could life be used, than by laying it down for such a prize? But besides all other difficulties in the very idea of atonement, the orthodox creed startles us by the incredible conception, that a voluntary sacrifice of life ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... every species, and gives the offspring of the individuals which possess it, in consequence of their superior numbers, a greater chance of survival in the battle of life. It is, therefore, directly under the control of natural selection, which acts both by the self-preservation of fertile and the self-destruction of infertile stocks—except always where correlated as above, when they become useful, and therefore subject to be increased ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... and gradual measures to remove it. The inhabitants of the South cannot, and ought not, suddenly to emancipate their slaves, to remain among them free. Such a measure would be no blessing to the slaves, but the very madness of self-destruction to the whites. In the South, the horrid scenes that would too certainly follow the liberation of their slaves, are present to every imagination, to stifle the calls of justice and humanity. A fell spirit ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... endeavored to make me take, and she sought to cheer me with a highly uncomplimentary estimate of the frivolous character of my quondam fiancee. It could serve no purpose for me to enlighten her as to the real truth, for did she know the truth she might be haunted by the dread spectre of self-destruction. So her last words as we parted were an admonition to me not to think that all women were as blind and ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... down into the deep abyss I felt my head reeling. There is a fascination in great heights that impels one to thoughts of self-destruction. A sudden dizziness seized me as I placed my foot over the edge of the fearful precipice, and were it not for Kona, who, noticing my condition, gripped me by the arm, I should have certainly missed my footing and been dashed to pieces on the needle-like ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... not ordinarily salved by its previous ignorance as to the corrosive properties of fire. You have betrayed confiding womanhood, an act abhorrent to all notions of gentility. There is but one conclusive proof of your repentance.—Need I mention that I allude to self-destruction?" ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... words he had chosen were precisely those of the required formula: Auctor laudabiliter se subjecit et opus reprobavit. "The author has laudably made his submission and reprobated his work." No error could have been confessed, no hope could have accomplished self-destruction with loftier despair, more sovereign grandeur. But what frightful irony: that book which he had sworn never to withdraw, and for whose triumph he had fought so passionately, and which he himself now denied and suppressed, not because he deemed it guilty, but because he had just ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... a patient he showed a most cowardly disposition, developing a ferocious temper, rejecting medical advice, cursing everybody who came around, so that he lay for months at our charge, until we really got to wish that he would carry out his threat of self-destruction. He did not, but he was crippled for life and did not leave ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... Makololo formed a line in front of it and strove to check the impetuous charge. Their efforts proved vain. Mad with the agony of thirst, the beasts had no longer any respect for the authority of man; and they who were trying to stay them from self-destruction only saved themselves from being trodden under foot, by getting ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... these very Letters, Lyttelton says that he cannot defend by argument.* That Lyttelton made his will 'a few weeks before his death,' providing for his fair victims, may be accounted for, as we shall see, by the threatening state of his health, without any notion of self-destruction. Walpole, in his three letters, only speaks of 'a pistol' as the common construction of 'sudden death;' and that remark occurs before he has heard any details. He rises from a mere statement of Lord Lyttelton's, that he is 'to die in three ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... to do with the matter. If he was a deep man, and knew the stupidness of Scotland Yard, he probably sent the notes to an enemy. If not, they may have been given to a friend. Nothing is more calculated to prepare the mind for self-destruction than the prospect of a night ride on the Scotch express, and the view from the windows of the train as it passes through the northern part of London is particularly ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... more composed, arranged his couch to the best of his power, ate little and slept less, and found existence almost supportable, because he felt that he could throw it off at pleasure, like a worn-out garment. Two methods of self-destruction were at his disposal. He could hang himself with his handkerchief to the window bars, or refuse food and die of starvation. But the first was repugnant to him. Dantes had always entertained the greatest horror of pirates, who are hung ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... however, they ran round the varanda they found her under the window, on the spot where William Barton had been murdered, lying cold and dead, with a ghastly gash in her neck, and her white garments dyed red with her life-blood. A razor, the instrument with which she had accomplished her self-destruction, was clutched, with the grip of death, in her red ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... Richardson's elm, over the topmost branch—hurrah! out of sight! Margaret adds her voice to the acclamations. Beat that if you can, Mary! That doubtful wind keeps yours suspended in a graceful minuet; its pace is accelerated—but earthwards! it has committed self-destruction by running foul of a rose-bush. A ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... question of scientific progress into the sphere of morality. It is conceivable that the progress of science might involve for us no progress at all. It might be, and some have feared that it may become, a step towards the self-destruction ...
— Progress and History • Various
... prudent, and thoughtful men in the United States, who had made the science of government a study, and human nature their daily reading, who perceived principles of self-destruction in the French constitution. They saw its want of balances, and the course of the representatives under it, which must inevitably allow the gallery to rule the legislature, and mobs to give color to the opinions of the executive. They clearly perceived, what Lafayette ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... argument and investigation, by which its votaries have reached the dispassionate conclusion that there is no real good or pleasure in the world that is not clearly outweighed by evil or pain, and that therefore self-destruction, or at least final annihilation is the consummation ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... of the whole thing, doctrine, action, mentality; and on the contemptible aspect of the half-crazy pose as of a brazen cheat exploiting the poignant miseries and passionate credulities of a mankind always so tragically eager for self-destruction. That was what made for me its philosophical pretences so unpardonable. Presently, passing to particular instances, we recalled the already old story of the attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory; a blood-stained inanity of so fatuous a kind that it was impossible to fathom ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... as she read that melancholy farewell, expressed in language at once wild and childish. If he survived his desperate attempt at self-destruction, to what end would it lead? In silence, the woman who loved him put his letter back in her bosom. Watching her attentively—affected, it was impossible to say how, by that mute distress—Fanny Mere proposed to go downstairs, and ask once more what hope there might ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... Birnier knew, and sooner or later collapse, which would give him a chance to escape, unless they chained him, or, what was far more probable, they decided to bait him to death during an orgy. What they would probably do to him was unthinkable. Somehow he must find a way out by self-destruction. Even should he escape, he would be unarmed and without food, and there was every possibility that they would trail and overtake him in the morning. He was lame and footsore; also he was weak from want ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... feeling," smiled Merry. "You know that an average of sixteen suicides a year take place here at the falls. People cannot resist the fascination of the rushing water. Many times no real reason can be given for these acts of self-destruction. You know there are moments when every human brain falters and seems touched by the fleeting finger of insanity. People who stand on great heights often feel an almost irresistible longing to fling themselves down. Here ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... o' devils spawned by harpies! They say there is no devil to-day! Hoh!" The old man puffed the heresy from his pursed lips. "The beasts don't prey on their own 'cepting the rats that starve; but, man, there's no explanation of his self-destruction 'cepting the old fashioned one, Wayland. 'He ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... practice was when Yamato-dake presented to the Ise shrine the Yemishi chiefs who had surrendered to him in the sequel of his invasion of the eastern provinces. The same fate seems to have befallen numerous captives made in the campaign against the Kumaso, and doubtless wholesale acts of self-destruction committed by Tsuchi-gumo and Kumaso when overtaken by defeat were prompted by preference of death to slavery. The story of Japan's relations with Korea includes many references to Korean prisoners who became the property of their captors, and that a victorious general's spoils ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... warrant me," said the Queen, interrupting him. "Fie, young man! I take shame to say that in our capital such and so various are the means of thriftless folly, that to give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and furnishing them with the means of self-destruction. If I live and reign, these means of unchristian excess shall be abridged. Yet thou mayest be poor," she added, "or thy parents may be. It shall be gold, if thou wilt, but thou shalt answer to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... little town where he was born, leaving behind him a trail of mishaps and misfortunes. He is depicted with a marvellous art, though it is impossible to sympathise with him. He upsets a love-affair of his sister's, he quarrels with and insults her lover, who commits suicide; he also drives to self-destruction a wretched little Hebrew who has become a freethinker and can't stand the strain of his apostasy; he is the remote cause of another suicide, that of a weakling, a student full of "modern" ideas, but whose will is quite sapped. Turgenieff's Fathers and Sons ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... had said in his high-pitched voice, staring at Sarka the First out of red-rimmed, fiery eyes, "unless something is done the world will rush on to self-destruction! Men will slay one another! Fathers will kill their sons, and sons their fathers, if something is not done! For always there is marrying and giving in marriage, and each family is reaching out in all directions, seeking merely space in which ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... pale. But Adam with such counsel nothing sway'd, 1010 To better hopes his more attentive minde Labouring had rais'd, and thus to Eve repli'd. Eve, thy contempt of life and pleasure seems To argue in thee somthing more sublime And excellent then what thy minde contemnes; But self-destruction therefore saught, refutes That excellence thought in thee, and implies, Not thy contempt, but anguish and regret For loss of life and pleasure overlov'd. Or if thou covet death, as utmost end 1020 Of miserie, so thinking to evade The penaltie pronounc't, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... shadow."(53) "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass is withered, and the flower thereof is fallen away."(54) To the natural man all this is appalling, and how frequently it finds its solution in unbridled self-indulgence, in mental unbalance, and self-destruction! But the saints, and all the truly wise, have viewed the problem of human suffering in a vastly different light. They have discerned it, first of all, as really distinctive of the road to Heaven, and as essentially ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... be possible at present to be revenged upon the king. There was little chance of eluding his sleepless vigilance, or of leading him into any rash act of self-destruction. Besides, she knew him too well not to understand that he was the only man alive who could save Persia from further revolutions, and keep the throne against all comers. She loved power and the splendour ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... of his true relation to God, then it is only a reasonable carrying out of the same thought that, when the bulk of mankind fail to realize the beneficent use of these powers, and persist in using them invertedly, the same Being should again appear to save the race from utter self-destruction, but not by the same method, for that would ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... claim upon your heart, especially from such an unworthy quarter. Clara, you are a mere child, full of generous but romantic sentiments and dangerous impulses. You require extra vigilance and firm exercise of authority on the part of your guardian to save you from certain self-destruction. And some day, sweet girl, you will thank us for preserving you from the horrors of such a mesalliance," said Craven Le Noir, gently ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... excitement, took him gently by the coat-sleeve and led him from the brink. Sympathy begets confidence, and, within the next ten minutes, he had learned that Arthur Heard, rejected by Emma Smith, was contemplating the awful crime of self-destruction. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... spoken, if her daughter had been a member of Mr. Keller's family. With floods of tears, with eloquent protestations, with threats even of self-destruction, could she venture on making the ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... well did he, like every other marked foe of Rome, know for what he was reserved, and no doubt he yielded himself in the full expectation of that fate which many a man, as brave as he, had escaped by self-destruction. ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seek him. The Lord withholds destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it was the principle of life which grew stronger within him, the young man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of self-destruction haunted him day and night. He lingered around the wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy evening, when even this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... God which is at the root of all wickedness, if the thought of ending their troubles by death crossed his mind, and from very tenderness kept returning? At the last gasp, as it seemed, in the close and ever closer siege of misfortune, he was almost ready, like the Jews of Masada, to conquer by self-destruction. But ever and again the sad eyes of his wife turned him from the thought, and he would plod on, thinking, as near as ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and Drummle while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other instruments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose Christian name was Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy. It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the garden was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... an unfrequent case with suicides, that we find reason to suppose, if they had survived their gloomy purpose, that they would, at a subsequent period, have been considerably happy. It arises indeed, in some measure, out of the very nature of a spirit of self-destruction; which implies a degree of anguish, that the constitution of the human mind will not suffer to remain long undiminished. This is a serious reflection, Probably no man would destroy himself from an impatience of present pain, if he felt a moral certainty that there were years of enjoyment ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... wish. I will make myself good, great, and renowned for your sake. Your smiles will keep me from every temptation. But I warn you that if you cast me off—if you trifle with me—I shall become a reckless man. I shall be ruined. My only impulse will be self-destruction." ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for their overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads to self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather of commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen the hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I was constrained to perceive that he labored under ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... these factors influence modern Germany. One of the roots of tragedy is to be found in the inequality between the will and power to perform. In its helplessness the will recoils upon itself, turning to gall and bitterness, or seeks a solution in self-destruction. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... seemed rather to become worse, and showed signs of intentions to commit suicide; and her family and friends lived in a wretched state of apprehension. In spite of the most faithful watchfulness, she twice succeeded in securing the means for self-destruction, but something prevented her from accomplishing her design. At last, it occurred to a friend to present this woman's case in the prayer-meeting, to the Lord, and earnest prayer was offered ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... but Lord Thomas' fiery temper could ill brook such precaution, and he was but too easily roused by the artful enemies who incited him to rebellion. The reports of his father's execution were confirmed. His proud blood was up, and he rushed madly on the career of self-destruction. On the 11th of June, 1534, he flung down the sword of state on the table of the council-hall at St. Mary's Abbey, and openly renounced his allegiance to the English monarch. Archbishop Cromer implored him with tears ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... consequences, and care must be had for his future discretion. The Hebrew shall be punished, and as a solemn warning to the whole tribe, the debt confiscated to the benefit of the borrower. With such an example before their eyes, the knaves will be less ready with their sequins. Holy St. Theodore! 'twere self-destruction to suffer one of such promise to be lost for the want of prudent forethought. I will charge myself with the matter, as an especial duty, and the senate shall have no cause to say that its interests have been neglected. Hast thou had applications ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and bless her resting-place. He was going to die and lie beside her there, under the red earth topped by the boulder-cairn. He smiled. What an easy solution of the problem! He had been too intent upon gratifying her last desire to entertain for a moment the thought of suicide. He had always held self-destruction as the last resource of the coward and the criminal, and besides there ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... I have pointed out so many times, the race was between maturity and the petulant self-destruction of protracted adolescence. Mankind had either to take thought or to perish, and it has chosen (perhaps sensibly after all) to perish. I am too old now ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... from his wound. Early the next morning, still complaining, as it is alleged, of his wound, he went out, declaring he was going out to milk, and not returning in due time, upon search his body was found and his self-destruction discovered. This was nearly twenty years after the deceased received his wound, and there is not a suggestion of any act or word of his in all that time indicating insanity. It seems to me it can hardly be assumed in such circumstances ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... adultery when he could. Unnatural crimes were vindicated. The last dread crime—suicide—was pleaded for by Cicero and Seneca as the mark of a hero; and Demosthenes, Cato, Brutus, and Cassius, carried the means of self-destruction about them, that they might not fall alive into the hands of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... can only demand from His creatures the practice of virtues the seed of which He has sown in their soul, and all He has given unto us has been intended for our happiness; self-love, thirst for praise, emulation, strength, courage, and a power of which nothing can deprive us—the power of self-destruction, if, after due calculation, whether false or just, we unfortunately reckon death to be advantageous. This is the strongest proof of our moral freedom so much attacked by sophists. Yet this power of self-destruction is repugnant to nature, and has ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... his reply to the short speech of the Surgeon-General. I heard him say: "The laws prohibiting suicide and providing punishment for any attempt at self-destruction have been repealed. The Government has seen fit to acknowledge the right of man to end an existence which may have become intolerable to him, through physical suffering or mental despair. It is believed that the community will be benefited by the removal of such ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... most violent of Jacobins, and the sworn enemy of royalty. On that account the sanguinary agents of the self-created Assembly employed him to frequent the Temple. His special commission was to stimulate the King and Royal Family by every possible argument to self-destruction. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... preoccupied with the obsession for self-destruction, he lay there face downward, exhausted, trying to fight off the swimming sense of horror that was creeping over him again..... Little by little it mounted like a tide from hell.... He struggled to his feet with the unuttered cry of a ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... extended as far as the neighbourhood of Charleston, depended upon the control of the water, and are a conspicuous example of misapplication of power to the point of ultimate self-destruction. They were in 1778-79 essentially of a minor character, especially the maritime part, and will therefore be dismissed with the remark that the Navy, by small vessels, accompanied every movement in a country cut up in all directions by watercourses, big and little. "The defence ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... sat for a long time as motionless as if sleep had obscured his senses; and all that time a fearful debate was going on in his mind. At last he rose up, changed in feeling as well as in aspect. His resolution was taken, and a deep, almost leaden, calmness pervaded his spirit. He had resolved on self-destruction! ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... direful than slow starvation or quick suicide. She had soothed and comforted then. Since the previous evening, when he had gone out, in spite of her protestations, and left her alone, his manner had changed. He was still nervous and irritable, but no longer threatened self-destruction, and seemed, for some unexplained reason, more hopeful and less desperate. Sylvester had 'phoned, saying that he would call at the apartment at two, and since Stephen had received the message he had been in a state of suppressed ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... effective in saving patients from the emotional and traumatic strain of surgical operations—the principle of anoci-association. That is, by disconnecting one or more of the activating organs from the brain, the motor mechanism might be saved from its self-destruction. ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... he described himself as "of perfect memorye in sowle, but sicke in bodye". Two days after its execution he was buried, having died, not from disease, but from a fall from an upper window. His death had so much the appearance of self-destruction that L220 had to be paid to the High Almoner, Dr. Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, in satisfaction of his official claim to the goods and chattels of suicides. Herrick's biographers have not failed to vituperate the Bishop for ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... crouching in the ferns, wakened from sleep by the cries of her child on the left and the shouting of her man on the right, found herself face to face with the question, 'Shall I court self-destruction in attempting to save It, or shall I seek safety with Him?' Do we know how she answered that question? Undoubtedly she took the ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... bound Napoleon to the clerical cause, knew that there were limits which Italy could not at present pass without ruin. The centre of Mazzini's hopes, an advance upon Rome itself, he knew to be an act of self-destruction for Italy, and this advance he was resolved at all costs to prevent. Cavour had not hindered the expedition to Sicily; he had not considered it likely to embroil Italy with its ally; but neither had he been the author of this enterprise. The liberation of Sicily might be deemed the work ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... restoring power, assisted by heat, moisture, and the nourishment of the earth, resists the tendency to decay and preserves it alive and growing. The air, the earth, nay, the ocean itself, philosophers assure us, contain powers sufficient to self-destruction. But I will not enlarge here. Let the necessary cause be exerted which will give vent to this hidden power and actions the most astonishing and destructive would be the effect. These are often witnessed in the tremendous earthquakes which devastate whole cities, states, and empires; in the ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... might believe it to be," he answered. Indeed, it seemed that his vision had been infinitely extended, that he had suddenly come into possession of the solution of all the bewildered, despairing gropings of the human soul. Only awhile ago, for instance, the mood of self-destruction had been beyond his imagination: tonight he understood it, though he still looked upon it with horror. And he saw that his understanding of her—or of any human being—could never be of the intellect. He had entered into one of those astounding yet simple relationships wherein ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Preface to the "God in History." Within six to ten years the nation will again be fit to act. Palmerston will cut his throat if nothing comes of the Neapolitan business, and just the same if he cannot make "a good case;" the principle of intervention even against Bomba is self-destruction for England, and disgraceful in the highest degree. The fox cannot begin war in Italy at the present moment from want of money, and his accomplices are afraid of losing their stolen booty. So he tries to gain time. He will still live ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... factitious or external control was sufficient to restrain such an exuberance of sensibility and fancy: and those who praise the philosophy of Portia and the heroism of her death, certainly mistook the character altogether. It is evident, from the manner of her death, that it was not deliberate self-destruction, "after the high Roman fashion," but took place in a paroxysm of madness, caused by overwrought and suppressed feeling, grief, terror, and suspense. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... powerful sovereigns Not his custom nor that of his councillors to go to bed Partisans wanted not accommodation but victory Puritanism in Holland was a very different thing from England Seemed bent on self-destruction Stand between hope and fear The evils resulting from a confederate system of government To stifle for ever the right of ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... in self-destruction. As heretofore shown, its progress is suspended, and even defeated, by the very genius which it is supposed to develop; the Bible invites us to enter fields of inexhaustible opportunity wherein each achievement can be made a stepping-stone to ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... white robes, I receive in exchange around me these dark and dismal weeds. But the old man in the palace deprived of sight, always preserving with tears regret for the unanimity of the brothers which is separated from the family, has madly rushed on self-destruction with the sword and with the noose above the beams of the house, bewailing the curse imprecated on his children; and with cries of woe he is always hidden in darkness. But thou, my child, I hear, art both joined in marriage, and hast the joys of love in a foreign family, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... had no excuse—not a shadow of an excuse for the outrage. She, a disappointed wife was like a being temporising with suicide. Small blame to her if she took the plunge. It was for men of sound brain and clear judgment to save her—not supply the means of self-destruction. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... distinguish—at his own toes. When the smoke of the shot had cleared away, I fully expected to see the Icelander prostrate; but he was already reloading with the greatest expedition. Determined to prevent the repetition of so dreadful an attempt at self-destruction, I rushed to the spot. Guess then my relief when the bloody body of a ptarmigan—driven by so point blank a discharge a couple of feet into the snow—was triumphantly dragged forth by instalments from ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... detachments in various directions, finally forced the insurgents to concentrate on the northeast side of the island, where they were surrounded. After holding the island six months, the blacks, finding all chances of escape cut off, resolved upon self-destruction. "Three hundred," says an historian, "were, after a few days from the time they were surrounded, found lying dead at Brim's Bay, now Anna Burg. In a ravine, a short distance off, were discovered seven ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... all communities, some are found who, under various impulses, will commit suicide. But the conduct of the great majority everywhere is controlled by the dictates of reason and self-interest. Whatever folly, even to the extremity of self-destruction, a few madmen in the Southern States may counsel, it may confidently be expected that rational thoughts will prevail among the masses. The paths of duty and of interest are for them the same; and, upon the whole, are too broad and plain to be mistaken. Their self-constituted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... looked more beautiful reflected in their depths. Ah, I used to think, one plunge into that lovely mirror, and I should reach that happy world—should know all. But this I said in my simplicity, for I knew not at that tender age that self-destruction was a sin; that man was forbidden to unclose a gate of which the Almighty held the key. His merciful hand was stretched over the creature of his will, and I never made the ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... forwards into the midst of the stream that runs by us, and totally disappear. A spectacle like this at dusk would have been appalling enough; but, in the broad open daylight, to witness such an unreserved motion towards self-destruction in a valued friend, took from me ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... whole truth. She knew the motivation for their madness of self-destruction. It was not insanity, but the sublime courage of a few human beings sacrificing themselves to save the rest of their civilization. They smashed the Guardian Wheel to keep the Sickness there. And Mryna had already escaped before that happened! She was being hurled through space toward ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... papers which contain matters of interest. This is twice resorted to; aformer occupant of the room in the inn in Nrnberg had left valuable notes of travel; and Johann, meeting a ragged woman, bent on self-destruction, takes from her a box with papers, disclosing a revolting story, baldly told. German mediocrity, imitating Yorick in this regard, and failing of his delicacy and subtlety, brought forth hideous offspring. An attempt at whimsicality of style is apparent in the "Furth Catechismus ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... to find some means of accomplishing his plan of self-destruction, when he heard a bustle and confusion outside. In a few moments the door was opened and a man was thrust into the same cell—a man who staggered a few steps, fell heavily to the floor, and began to snore loudly. It was only a ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... toward me for a while and then, about a hundred yards from me, they turned straight in toward the foot of the frowning cliffs. From where I was it seemed that they were bent upon self-destruction, since the roar of the breakers beating upon the perpendicular rock-face appeared to offer only death to any one who might venture within ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wife; a poor mad thing bent on self-destruction in wild and mournful ways. In that Swan was believed, at least. Nobody came to inquire of her, none ever stopped to speak a word. The nearest neighbor was twelve or fifteen miles distant, a morose man with sour face, master of a ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... Jessie than she cared to let Helen know; since it gave the assurance that her sister had no thought of self-destruction. She is further comforted by the reflection, that Helen has no need to repine, and the hope it may not be for long. Some other and truer lover will replace the lost false one, and she will soon forget his falsehood. So reasons ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... who had been watching Anna Liisa, is afraid of her curious apathetic behaviour, and looks out of the window, when she sees her setting off in a boat, apparently with the purpose of self-destruction. She and the fianc rush off to save her and bring her home. The girl explains in wild despair how she thought she saw her child under the water, and intended to jump in and rescue him. She raves somewhat like Ophelia in Hamlet, but her former lover Mikko comes back to her, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... thought came upon me which wrung my heart. The Governor! How could this unfortunate man exist? With a precipice on one side of his house and a potato-field on the other, what could save him from despair and self-destruction? This question was answered for me when I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various |
