"Destructive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of the lean-to, panic-stricken and alarmed, thinking of nothing but our lives; for of all perils of the Great Lone Land, the snow slide, with its speed and destructive power, was the most to be dreaded. We forgot the dead man—the gold under his pillow. We sped down the valley as though on wings, not daring to look up the hillside, where the avalanche was cleaving its ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... the tree-lobster, which is believed to climb cocoa-trees in search of the nuts. Upon the next table (21) are the sea craw-fish and sea locusts; and upon the succeeding table (22) the visitor will remark the destructive scorpion-lobster of India, the excavations of which seriously damage the roads of that part of the world; Shrimps in all their varieties; the delicate alima, with its pale thin shell; and the long king crab. Upon the last two tables devoted to shell fish, or crustacea, are spread the goose shells ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... way to help. But Lord! how few people take it! Suspicion is one of the most destructive agents at work in the world. Suspect a man, and you almost force him to give you cause for suspicion. Suspect a woman, and instantly you give her a push towards deceit. How I hate to hear men say they don't ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... less hungry and more keenly alive to the hated smell of his enemy, Baree ate less but was more destructive. McTaggart was not as skillful as Pierre Eustach in keeping the scent of his hands from the traps and "houses," and every now and then the smell of him was strong in Baree's nose. This wrought in Baree a swift and definite antagonism, ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... throwing massive stones, which could be got in plenty and of every size upon the shingly beach. And when there was a good hit, a great shout arose among the invading host. Many shot wagons and three other machines were brought by the enemy — very large, of great power, and very destructive — which might be thought to cut down and crush whatever their missiles struck. But the walls of Rothesay Castle were strong and thick, and the stones that struck them only shivered into a ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... redoubled fury in his Fairview breastworks, while Birney sustains him with his last man and cartridge. The Confederate troops take all advantage possible of the numerous ravines in our front; but the batteries at Fairview pour a heavy and destructive fire of shell and case into their columns as they press on. Every inch of ground is contested by our divisions, which hold their footing at ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... importance, and came to be regarded as a distinct divinity, holding indisputable dominion over the sea, and over all sea-divinities, who acknowledged him as their sovereign ruler. He possessed the power of causing at will, mighty and destructive tempests, in which the billows rise mountains high, the wind becomes a hurricane, land and sea being enveloped in thick mists, whilst destruction assails the unfortunate mariners exposed to their fury. On the other hand, his alone was the power ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... of existence; his hours are arranged as methodically as his heart beats; he knows the exact balance between physical and intellectual strength, and he overtaxes neither, but body and mind are worked up to the highest attainable pressure. No pleasures of the destructive sort call this youngster aside; he has learned already what it is to reap the harvest of a quiet eye, and his joys are of the sober kind. He rises early, and he has got far through his work ere noon; his quiet afternoon is devoted to harmless merriment in the cricket-field or on the friendly ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... while John looked on at this bewildering scene, Hugh kept near him; and though he was the loudest, wildest, most destructive villain there, he saved his old master's bones a score of times. Nay, even when Mr Tappertit, excited by liquor, came up, and in assertion of his prerogative politely kicked John Willet on the shins, Hugh bade him return the compliment; ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... estate is, I am sorry to say, in a still more disheartening condition. There is a very bitter and knowing family living on the townland of Beleeven, named M'Loughlin, who contrive to spread dangerous and destructive principles among the tenantry. They are cunning, unscrupulous, and vindictive, but cautious, plausible, and cloaked with the deepest hypocrisy. I have been endeavoring for years to conciliate, or rather, reform them by kindness, but hitherto without effect; whether ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... behest, and gathered round him to ascertain the extent of his injury. The Nor'westers now began to bring the two ends of their column together, and soon Semple's party was surrounded. The fact that their foe was now helpless did not keep the Nor'westers from pouring in a destructive fire. Most of Semple's men fell at the first volley. The few left standing pulled off their hats and begged for mercy. A certain Captain Rogers hastened towards the line of the Nor'westers and threw up his hands. He was followed by John Pritchard. One of the Bois Brules ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... forever. I have always hated it, so far that is as my imagination enabled me to realise it; and now that I have been seeing it, sometimes quite closely for a full month, I hate it more than ever. I never imagined a quarter of its waste, its boredom, its futility, its desolation. It is merely a destructive and dispersive instead of a constructive and accumulative industrialism. It is a gigantic, dusty, muddy, weedy, bloodstained silliness. It is the plain duty of every man to give his life and all that he has if by so doing he may help to end it. I hate ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... had been cutting down a eucalyptus-tree. The two men looked small and mean clambering over the felled giant, as if belonging to some species of destructive insect. The tree in its fall had bruised the wild growth, and the air was full of oily medicinal odors. Long strips of curled cinnamon-colored bark strewed the ground. The father and son confronted each other across the pallid trunk. The older man's ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... perfect freedom of mental adaptation. To discuss pragmatism while eating oysters would be destructive to the enjoyment afforded by the delicate sense of taste, whereas, to let one's mind wander from the plane of philosophic thought when preparing for a Hauptmann or a Strindberg play would lead to nothing less than the disaster ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... with neither terror nor hatred. At the same time over all the markets of the world there have arisen financial powers, which, although they often affect respect for old traditions, are by their very functions essentially destructive of the national and patriotic spirit. The universal capitalist system has created in France, as everywhere else, the internationalism of the workers and ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... they saw that these two creatures were engaged in a fierce and deadly combat. Now, it is a curious fact that the larger alligators and crocodiles are among the most destructive enemies which the turtles have, eating thousands of the latter while they are still tiny little creatures and unable to defend themselves; and, on the other hand, that the turtles prey extensively on the young of both alligators and crocodiles, eating them whenever they can catch them! I ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the following clause, and sometimes when the sense of that member would be complete without the concluding one, the semicolon is used; as in the following examples: "As the desire of approbation, when it works according to reason, improves the amiable part of our species; so, nothing is more destructive to them, when it is governed by vanity and folly;" "The wise man is happy, when he gains his own approbation; the fool, when he gains the applause of those around him;" "Straws swim upon the surface; but pearls ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... in equal use. From this Circumstance alone the Bottom of all Boats sent into Countrys where these worms are ought to be painted with White Lead, and the Ships supply'd with a good stock in order to give them a New Coat whenever it's necessary. By this means they would be preserved free from these destructive Vermin. The Long boat's Bottom being so much destroy'd appear'd a little extraordinary, as the Dolphin's Launch was in the Water at this very place full as long, and no such thing happened to her, as the Officers that were in ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... regarded Kazan suspiciously and kept well out of his way. Neither knew that the other was an ally. Meanwhile the beavers continued their work with greater caution. The water in the pond had now risen to a point where the engineers had begun the construction of three lodges. On the third day the destructive instinct of the otter began its work. He began to examine the dam, close down to the foundation. It was not long before he found a weak spot to begin work on, and with his sharp teeth and small bullet-like head he commenced his drilling ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... myself think, though the light-minded may imagine it to be so, that it was because there was a young one that John gave in. It was because he could do nothing else, the noise and chatter of the voices being entirely destructive of that undisturbed state of the atmosphere in which work can be done. It was not merely the sounds but the vibration they made in the air, breaking all its harmony and concentration. He tried a little longer, but was unsuccessful, and finally in despair he said to Simmons, "You had ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... it does not seem to have any specific disinfecting action—i.e., in destroying the bacilli. Indeed, Koch thinks that the admixture of sulphate of iron with faecal matter may arrest putrefaction, and really remove what may be the most destructive process to the comma bacilli. Hence he would distinguish between substances which merely arrest putrefaction and those which are bactericidal; for the former may simply serve the purpose of preserving the infective virus. Among other substances which prevent the growth of the comma bacilli may ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... adventure. But the others were not quite satisfied with the policy of the young millionaire. They wanted to shoot whatever they could see in the nature of game, including monkeys, and he was opposed to this destructive action. Of course they could kill whatever they pleased, but the moral influence of the real ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... these pages are written should not attempt any excavation, unless he has been trained under a practical excavator, and has learnt how work, which is essentially and inevitably destructive of evidence, can be made to yield profitable fruit. There is plenty of work that can be done on the surface ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... them as tough as leather, and quite unpalatable. Having no seyne, I can say little about other kinds of fish. We occasionally observed a large kind of flat fish, which often sprung a great way out of the water, which are said to be very destructive to the divers; for, when these return to the surface, unless they take great care, these fish wrap themselves round the divers, and hold them fast till drowned. To guard against this, the divers always carry a sharp-pointed knife, and on seeing any of these fish above them, present ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... electric lighting, that it may become generally used in our homes as well as in all public buildings. Gas has certainly proved itself a very useful and comparatively inexpensive illuminating power, but in many ways it contaminates the atmosphere, is injurious to health, and destructive to the furniture and fittings of our homes. Leakages from the mains impregnate the soil with poisonous matter, and it rarely happens that throughout a house there are no leakages. However small they may be, the air becomes tainted. It is almost impossible, at times, to detect the fault, or if detected, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... gambling is peculiarly destructive. It spares neither age nor sex. It visits the domestic hearth with a pestilence more quiet and stealthy, but not less deadly, than intemperance. It is at once the vice of the gentleman, and the passion of the blackguard. With deep shame we are forced to admit that the halls of ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... was waged with great bitterness for a long time, and caused the loss of a great many lives. At last an enormous Centaur appeared, and, putting himself at the head of the animals on the colder side of the river, led them in an attack on their opponents, which was so destructive that the latter were fain to surrender and promise to live in peace under the dominion of their stronger neighbors. Then the animals that had conquered were so pleased that they met together and agreed to make the Centaur ruler over the whole land, and when he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... turn once more, march back those interminable 12 miles, part of the time under heavy shell fire, dog-tired, without sleep or food, could without adequate artillery preparation perform a feat which later required a Division of fresh troops, after one of the most carefully planned and destructive bombardments at that time known? The Brigade could but have failed, and to the onlooker it seemed a tragic blunder, but to those who have read the pathetic story of a tragic day, the title given by "The Student in Arms" of "The Honour of the Brigade" alone provides ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... except to break some of these arbitrary laws, and so incur some cruel penalty. Down to our own century, and for the avowed purpose of injuring the only flourishing trade of the country (that of linen), the English cotton and woollen manufacturers procured the passing of acts better called destructive than protective; and in sober truth, if England now deplores the low industrial and commercial state of Ireland, she has only to look over her own statute-book, and see if ingenuity could have further gone in the way of discouragement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... to the world by the world's press as the "Burning Down of a Trappist Monastery" in which no lives had been lost save those of one Fra Ambrosio, long insane, who was supposed to have kindled the destructive blaze in a fit of mania,—and of a stranger, sick of malarial fever, whom the monks had ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... less than thirty feet, a shell containing even bird shot is apt to be projected with all the destructive qualities of a large bullet. Paul knew all about this, and also had faith in the hard-hitting qualities of his long tested gun; but he was not the one to be ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... the contrary, its very nature demands that it remain constant until destroyed by its opposite or by some positive cause. It is impossible to conceive a quality that would of itself revert to nothingness without the intervention of a destructive cause. Billuart merely beats the air when he says: "Potest dici qualitas incompleta habens se per modum passionis transeuntis."(77) What would Aristotle have said if he had been told of a thing that was half {GREEK SMALL LETTER PI}{GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON}{GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA}{GREEK ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... the distance it rumbled, low, deep, reverberating, and near at hand it was a thing of mutable mood. It moaned, whined, mocked, and laughed. It had the soul of a devil. It was a river that had cut its way to the bowels of the earth, and its nature was destructive. It harbored no life. Fighting its way through those dead walls, cutting and tearing and wearing, its heavy burden of silt was death, destruction, and decay. A silent river, a murmuring, strange, fierce, terrible, ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... 'Tis a mere whim—a youthful fancy, not worthy of respect,"—forgetting or shutting their eyes to the fact, that, light though the whim or fancy may be in their eyes, it has positive weight to those who cherish it, and the thwarting of it is as destructive of peace and joy to the young as the heavier disappointments of life are ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... period of modern history, did not independent and judicious travellers or visitors abroad collect and forward to Great Britain (the last refuge of freedom) some materials which, though scanty and insufficient upon the whole, may, in part, rend the veil of destructive politics, and enable future ages to penetrate into mysteries which crime in power has interest to render impenetrable to the just reprobation of honour and of virtue." If, therefore, my humble labours can preserve loyal subjects from the seduction ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... A race of crooked red-hair-covered monsters going on all fours. A dumb race to keep the shame untold." (And an ancient commentary adds 'when the Third separated and fell into sin by breeding men-animals, these (the animals) became ferocious, and men and they mutually destructive. Till then, there was no ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... by the town: Th' souldiers scarlet now from Spain must come; The purple of the sea contemn'd is grown. India with silks, Africk with precious stone, Arabia with its spices hither come, And with their ruin raise the pride of Rome. But other spoils, destructive to her peace, Rome's ruin bode, and future ills encrease: Through Libyan desarts are wild monsters chas'd. And the remotest parts of Africk trac'd: Where the unwieldy elephant that's ta'en, For fatal value of his tooth is slain. Uncommon tygers are imported here, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... it merely as destructive of social enjoyment, that the habits of the great world are unfriendly to happiness. It is not the place for those who have warm imaginations and tender hearts. There is scarcely any circumstance in which that sphere differs more from others, than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... be displeased at the blunt criticism. The just mean between the stations thus specified is equality, and the firm maintenance of the same by the parents. Manners and environment are apt to harmonize. To teach a boy not to be slovenly and destructive in his own domain, give him a domain in which he can feel the pride of proprietorship. He would like to invite his comrades into his "den," as his sisters entertain intimate friends in their boudoir. He may not put into words ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... get a living by emigration.' R. 'Yes, if there were an emigration of children under six years of age. But they don't emigrate till they could earn their livelihood in some way at home.' C. 'It is remarkable that the most unhealthy countries, where there are the most destructive diseases, such as Egypt and Bengal, are the most populous.' JOHNSON. 'Countries which are the most populous have the most destructive diseases. That is the true state of the proposition.' C. 'Holland is very unhealthy, yet it is exceedingly populous.' JOHNSON. 'I know not that Holland is unhealthy. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... very destructive to crops. During the night they revel in the cultivated fields contiguous to the jungle, and they destroy more by rooting up than by actually eating. It is common for the ryot to dig a shallow pit, and ensconce himself inside with his matchlock ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... it follows or no, it is certainly true—that neither faith alone nor reason alone is a sufficient guide: a man's safety lies neither in faith nor reason, but in temper—in the power of fusing faith and reason, even when they appear most mutually destructive. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the tragedy comes the farce. [The tragedy is Kant's destructive criticism of the speculative reason.] So far Immanuel Kant has been playing the relentless philosopher; he has laid siege to heaven.' Heine goes on with some violence to describe the havoc Kant has made of the orthodox belief: 'Old Lampe,[40] with ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... he advanced with more depth of thought. "Wars have ever been clothed with the most gracious pretences—viz., reformation of religion, the laws of the land, the liberty of the subject, &c.; though the effects thereof have proved most destructive to every nation; making the sword, and not the people, the original of all authorities for many hundred years together, taking away each man's birthright, and settling upon a few A CURSED PROPRIETY; the ground of all civil ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... suppressed, serve better the purposes of mistaken or insidious malcontents than the real publication can. And, if any thing were by this, or any other, History to be shown essentially erroneous in our politics, who, that calls himself a Briton, can be deemed such an impious slave, as to conceal the destructive evil? The editor of this work disdains and abhors the servile thought, and wishes to live no longer than he dares to think, speak, write, and, in all things, to act ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... parties: and this added greatly to the strength of the Government. The Tory leaders now, instead of insisting on a maintenance of the old Constitution, went into alternative proposals—including the adoption of the Referendum. This was their constructive line; the destructive resolved itself largely into an endeavour to focus resistance on the question of Ireland—the purpose for which alone, they said, abolition of the veto was demanded. As has often happened, action taken by the Vatican gave the opponents of Home Rule a ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... country in La Plata was blessed with so flourishing and perfected a system of industry as Paraguay. But the war came, waged by the allies expressly to destroy for ever the dictatorial authority wielded by Lopez; Paraguay was invaded and overrun; and the fierce and destructive character of the contest has left shattered walls in the capital, and in the interior the blackened ruins of ranchos. These traces of the terrible conflict give a melancholy aspect to the city, and its future is further shadowed by the hopelessness of the people, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... there, Nature quivers in despair. When the master of the scene, From the cloud-work of serene Asks her long deputed power— Takes her sceptre—bids her cower— Strips her of her ancient robe, She, who once bestrode the globe— Flings around his flaming path Crescents of destructive wrath; Tramples earth, and rolls in fire Forth the thunders of his ire. Nature sinks, no more to rise While JEHOVAH fills the skies With his glory high, sublime— Death is dead, and perished time! What a scene! when naught shall be But Chaos ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... this sacrament which the "plain man" has always found much easier to understand than the symbolic view which is that of our Church. One is that it is a miracle or magical performance, the other is that it is a mere commemoration. Both are absolutely destructive of the idea of a sacrament. The latter view, that of some Protestant sects, was quite foreign to the early Church, so far as our evidence goes; the former, it is only just to say, is found in many of the Fathers, not ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... was a time in our history when unbelief and skepticism was more determined in its opposition to the Christian religion than at the present. There is an incessant attempt to instill into the minds of the young principles in opposition to, and destructive of Christianity. Many have split upon the rocks of infidelity, and stranded upon the quicksands of doubt and skepticism, in spite of the fact that Christianity presented them an example, which is the light and life of men—a character without a blot! And this example is the only foundation ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... subject. For the subject may happen to fall wholly outside the sphere to which such a pair of terms is limited. But since the fact of a term being applied is a sufficient indication of its applicability, and since within a given sphere positive and privative terms are as mutually destructive as contradictories, we may in all cases substitute the privative for the negative term in immediate inference by permutation, which will bring the inferred proposition more into conformity with the ordinary usage of language. ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... are forgiven and forgotten, but the Zeppelin raids on England will survive, if only as a curious failure. Their failure was both material and moral. Anti-aircraft guns and our intrepid airmen brought one after another of these destructive monsters blazing to the ground, and their work of "frightfulness" was taken up by the aeroplane; while more lamentable still was the failure of the Zeppelin as an instrument of terror to the civil population. In the long list of German miscalculations ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... the day we are trying to recall, hundreds of elephants and rhinoceroses congregate in a limited area, whilst innumerable herds of giraffes, zebras, and gazelles graze peacefully in the presence of man, whose destructive powers they have not ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... fractious that cannot be paid, the proper result of a heterogeneous system, are a constant source of jealousy, and often produce disputes, and sometimes bitter wrangling, between buyer and seller. The injury to public morals arising from this cause, like the destructive effect of the constant dropping of water, though too slow in its progress to be distinctly traced, is not the less certain. The economic value of binary gradation is, in the aggregate, immense; yet its moral value is not to be overlooked, when a full estimate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... the covenant, and slew them. Their hearts were filled with faithlessness and rage, the mighty passions of men. They would fain requite the gift of life with evil, that the people of Moses might pay for that day's work in blood, if almighty God would prosper their destructive journey. ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... she appeared upon her horse, clad in her little breeches and top-boots and scarlet coat, child though she was, she set the field on fire. She learned full early how to coquet and roll her fine eyes; but it is also true that she was not much of a languisher, as all her ogling was of a destructive or proudly-attacking kind. It was her habit to leave others to languish, and herself to lead them with disdainful vivacity to doing so. She was the talk, and, it must be admitted, the scandal, of the county by the day she was fifteen. The part wherein she lived was a boisterous hunting ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... look at it as a question in social life, in morals, or in physiology, the American plan of granting absolute divorces is dangerous, and destructive to what is best in life. It leads to hasty, ill-assorted matches, to an unwillingness to yield to each other's peculiarities, to a weakening of the family ties, to a lax morality. Carry it a trifle farther than it now is in some of the Western States, and marriage will lose all its ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... sword, and from thence conclude, whether it is honourable to draw it so frequently or not? An illustrious commonwealth of Italy[294] has preserved itself for many ages, without letting one of their subjects handle this destructive instrument, always leaving that work to such of mankind as understand the use of a whole skin so little, as to make a profession of exposing it to cuts and scars. But what need we run to such foreign instances: our own ancient and well-governed cities are conspicuous ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... a tornado, and must symbolize a compact, organized body of invaders. Its being of a volcanic nature, renders it so much the more terrible and destructive. ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... regained possession of the western post, and brought their long nine-pounder to rake the whole line of the enemy, who, pressed together into so dense a body, that a child might have walked on their heads from one end to the other, remained thus defenceless, and exposed to the destructive fire that was poured upon them by a cannon of great power, at no more than sixty yards distance; every shot from this tremendous engine did immense execution, and savage yells filled the forest with horrible echoes. These gradually died away, as the terrified host fell back. At eight o'clock the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... Shall raise her frame to scenes of blood no more; Pale recollection shall recall her woes, Again shall paint her agonizing throes: These, o'er the earth thine empire firm shall raise, Unaw'd by war's destructive storms, the bliss of ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... would love, that would loiter, that would think, that would if it could give us art, delight and beauty, that turns blindly and stumblingly towards joy, towards intervals, towards the mysterious things of the spirit, against all this sordid strenuousness, this driving destructive association of hardfisted peasant soul and Ghetto greed, this fool's "efficiency," that ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... it is with peculiar pleasure that I quote this passage, respecting this truly great man, at a time when some of the infatuated politicians of this country are vainly thinking to build their wretched and destructive projects, on the ruins of his established reputation; a reputation as extensive as the spread of science itself, and of which it is saying very little indeed, to pronounce that it will last and flourish when the names of all his enemies shall ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... bolters completed their destructive work by organizing a separate convention in Baltimore, by adopting the report of the majority in the Charleston convention as their platform, and by nominating John C. Breckinridge as their candidate for the presidency. Lane of Oregon was named ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Paris in a few hours. It was at once a powerful instrument of industrial development, and of progress in the conquest of man over inert matter, and a terrible engine of devastation in warfare, and of massacre and vandalism where homicidal and destructive passions were ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... they must likewise endure heats that were insupportable, and rains that were intolerable, every drop of which was changed into a serpent: that, if they penetrated farther into the country, they would be assaulted by monsters a thousand times more hideous and destructive than all the beasts mentioned ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... So much did this affect him, that he had almost a mind to tear it into a thousand fragments, and scatter it out of the window to the west-wind, that was then blowing past the house; and if, in that summer season, there had been a fire on the hearth, it is possible that easy realization of a destructive impulse might have incited him to fling the accursed scrawl into the hottest of the flames, and thus returned it to the Devil, who, he suspected, was the original author of it. Had he done so, what strange and gloomy passages would I have been spared the pain of relating! How different would have ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... unpretentious glazed door and we followed him into the restaurant, whereof the atmosphere was pervaded by an appetising meatiness mingled with less agreeable suggestions of the destructive distillation of fat. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... considered the vilifying and misrepresenting the conduct of judges and magistrates, intrusted with the administration of justice and the laws of the country, to be a crime of a very heinous nature, and most destructive in its consequences, because it tended to lower them in the opinion of those who ought to feel a proper reverence and respect for their high and important stations; and that, when it was stated to the ignorant or the wicked that their judges ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... are on the ground they are peculiarly accessible, and the eggs, being large, are tempting. Perhaps the mowing machine is as destructive as anything; and after all these there is the risk of a wet season and of disease. Let the care exercised be never so great, a certain amount of ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... obstacles to progress and reform, but it should be remembered that they are the social habits which society has acquired through registering the experience of the past, and that while some of them, such as intemperance and sexual vice, are destructive of society, others, like co-operation, and the ideal of freedom, are absolutely ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... economical sense, would be policy just as sane as, politically, to dismantle the royal navy, start the guns overboard, and leave the hulls of the men-of-war to sink or swim, in harbour or out, as they might. Conscious of the inherent rottenness or insanity of such a destructive principle of action, its advocates would now persuade us, that, although inimical to protective imposts, they are by no means averse from the imposition of such fiscal burdens as might be necessary for raising the amount of revenue required for State exigencies. The difference between one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Commons choose to support their representatives in a course of conduct adverse to the opinion of the nation, the House of Commons will set the nation at defiance. They have done so once; may they never repeat that destructive career! Such are our two Houses of Parliament—the most illustrious assemblies since the Roman Senate and Grecian Areopagus; neither of them is the 'House of the People,' but both alike ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... which, and of Flushing at the river's mouth, Antwerp was kept in a state of suspended animation. To open the navigation of the Scheld, to permit free approach to Antwerp, would, according to the narrow notions of the Amsterdam merchants, be destructive ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... waste the present by going upon its predecessor's trail; but he had come to a resolution—full three minutes ago—to humor his companion to the top of his bent, and say "Yes" with hypocritical vigor to everything not directly and immediately destructive ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... (as also was the holy water stoup to which it led us) just as if the gentle grazing touch of the cloaks of peasant-women going into the church, and of their fingers dipping into the water, had managed by agelong repetition to acquire a destructive force, to impress itself on the stone, to carve ruts in it like those made by cart-wheels upon stone gate-posts against which they are driven every day. Its memorial stones, beneath which the noble dust of the Abbots of Combray, who were buried there, furnished the choir with a sort of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... customary system. Both were tried at Hougomont to turn the right, and at La Haye Sainte to break through the left centre. Hence the French operations were confined to fierce and incessant onsets with masses of cavalry and infantry, generally supported by a numerous and destructive artillery. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... brig Enterprise, Lieutenant Burrows. They fought off Portland, at half pistol-shot distance, on the 3d of September, 1813. The commander of the Boxer (Lieutenant Blyth) had boastfully nailed his flag to her mast, and after a sharp, short, and destructive engagement, she was compelled to surrender. Her second officer had to announce the fact through his trumpet, for he could not haul down her flag. Burrows and Blyth were both slain, and were buried side by side in a cemetery ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... gave her the nickname of Calabash. She wore no mourning: her dress was brown; her black lace cap displayed two bands of uncommonly light flaxen hair, with no luster. Francois, the youngest son, was seated on a bench, mending a small mesh, a very destructive sort of fishing net, strictly forbidden use on the Seine. Notwithstanding his sunburned appearance, his skin was fair; red hair covered his head; his features were well turned, his lips thick, his forehead projecting, his eyes sharp and piercing: there was no resemblance to his mother ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Little, "that's the largest variety of robin I've ever seen in these parts. I 'low you must have brought the seed from the east with you. You wouldn't mind if I took a shot at it, I 'spose. 'Pears like birds of that size must be mighty destructive to cherries." ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... you have endeavoured to give an example of universal goodness and benevolence. But I am afraid you have strained and stretched that character too far; you have furnished him with too great a variety of accomplishments, some of them destructive, at least not so consistent with the principal and most shining virtue. The man is every thing, as Lucy or Harriet says; which no man ever was, or will be. Homer in the Odyssey, and in the character of Euemaeus, has given an example of universal benevolence; ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, Destructive war, and all-involving age. See from each clime the learn'd their incense bring! Hear in all tongues consenting paeans ring! In praise so just let every voice be join'd, And fill the general chorus of mankind. Hail, Bards triumphant! born in happier ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... the month, and began at once to make the acquaintance of the barnyard. He was entirely destitute of agricultural talents, original or acquired, a green hand in every sense of the word, with that muscular willingness to learn which exhibits itself by unusual destructive capacity upon implements of toil and the docility of patient farm animals. He had physical strength, and after attempting to chop, hay, and milk, he was given a dung-fork and set to work at a pile of manure. He ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... bring only grief and pain; But thou, my shining Reaping Hook, the symbol art of peace, And fill'st a thousand families with smiles and happiness; While conquering warrior's burning brand, amid his gory path, The emblem is of pain and woe, of man's destructive wrath. Soon therefore may the spear give place unto the shepherd's crook, And the conqueror's flaming sword be turn'd ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... approval of all his neighbours, and for some years each Sabbath afternoon saw most of the neighbours collected together for the best mode of worship within their reach. The bush settlements at this period were much infected by bears, and they often proved very destructive to the crops of the early settler, and also a cause of no little fear. I believe the instances have been rare when a bear has been known to attack a person, although it has happened in some cases; but the immigrant has so often listened to exaggerated accounts regarding ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... of any other part of Eastern Asia. The Yellow River is a fierce and terrible stream, too swift for navigation, turgid, and full of mud, depositing silt upon its bed until it rises above the surrounding country, when it suddenly alters its course, sweeping away villages and towns in a destructive torrent. Among most early agricultural nations, such a river would have inspired superstitious awe, and floods would have been averted by human sacrifice; in the Shu-King, however, there is little trace of superstition. Yao and Shun, and Yue (the latter's successor), were all occupied in ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... scene to which we are aware of no parallel in the nesting-places of the feathered tribes. In the select places where the birds only roost for the night, the congregating, though not permanent, is often as great and destructive to the forest. The native Indians rejoice in a breeding or a roosting-place of the migratory pigeon, as one which shall supply them with an unbounded quantity of provisions, in the quality of which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... without bread. The inhabitants desert the country, and crowd into the towns." [Footnote: Lettres de Frontenac et de Champigny, 1691, 1692.] A new enemy appeared in the following summer, almost as destructive as the Iroquois. This was an army of caterpillars, which set at naught the maledictions of the clergy, and made great havoc among the crops. It is recorded that along with the caterpillars came an unprecedented multitude of squirrels, ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... seeking some particularly destructive retort. She ended by saying bluntly, "Did you know that we were going home ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... Though rainfall increases, destructive floods become fewer, for the humus and the leaves on the ground in the forests hold the water as in a vast sponge, and, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, they keep the waters in check and distribute the rainfall ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... Douglas, Heron, and Co.'s bank, which no doubt you heard of, has undone numbers of them; and imitating English and French, and other foreign luxuries and fopperies, has ruined as many more. There is a great trade of smuggling carried on along our coasts, which, however destructive to the interests of the kingdom at large, certainly enriches this corner of it, but too often at the expense of our morals. However, it enables individuals to make, at least for a time, a splendid appearance; but Fortune, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... have been a source, fellow-citizens, of much gratification if our last communications from Europe had enabled me to inform you that the belligerent nations, whose disregard of neutral rights has been so destructive to our commerce, had become awakened to the duty and true policy of revoking their unrighteous edicts. That no means might be omitted to produce this salutary effect, I lost no time in availing myself of the act authorizing a suspension, in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... various other offerings of betel nut, rice, or eggs, according to the bounty and good will of the priest and of the settlement. When all is ready, it is taken to the water's edge about sunset, for that is the hour when the mightiest of the demons begin their destructive march. Here the priest makes an address to the demon of the epidemic, descanting on the value of the offerings, the scarcity of victims at that particular time, the reasons for mutual friendship between him (the demon) and the settlement. The demon is then requested to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... wont to mourn over the introduction of firearms, as destructive of chivalry; and certainly the steel-clad knight, with barbed steed, and sword and lance, has disappeared from the battle-field; but his most essential qualities, truth, honor, faithfulness, mercy, and self-devotion, have not disappeared with him, nor can they as long as Christian men and women ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... principal end of this present Engagement were for the glory of GOD, How comes it to passe that not so much as one of the desires of the Kirk, for the safety and security of Religion in the said Engagement, is to this day satisfied or granted; But on the contrary such courses taken as are destructive to Religion. And if Gods glory be intended what meaneth the employing and protecting in this Army so many blasphemers persecutors of Piety, disturbers of divine worship, and others guilty of notorious and crying sins. Again, how can ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... feeling he says elsewhere in prose, that "there is a destructive criticism and a productive. The former is very easy; for one has only to set up in his mind any standard, any model, however narrow" (let us say the Greeks), "and then boldly assert that the work under ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... on then all the LOT of you!" cried Uncle Jim, and backing dexterously whirled the eel round in a destructive circle. The pink sunshade was torn from the hand that gripped it and whirled athwart the complete, but unadorned, tea ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... the Skeptics of the day who devoted their minds to destructive dialectical quibbling and sophistry[112] instead of seeking for God and the human good. They ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... lifted what looked like crumpled fragments of brown paper, which quivered in a breeze too light to move the surface of the stream. Here alone the fingers of the frost had left a blight, like that of flames, and had denied to their destructive work the glamour of a funeral pall, dealing death without pomp ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... BRUNO BAUER (1809-1882). A destructive commentator of the New Testament. He belonged to the school of "higher" criticism which has done so much to "lower" Christianity in the eyes of savants and professors and so little in those of mankind at large. His "Critique of the Evangelistic History ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... when really its whole heart has been eaten out by the termites. Nowadays the whole area on which a house is to be raised is covered with cement or with asphalt, and care taken that no timber joists are allowed to touch the earth and thus give entry to the termites. Fortunately, these destructive insects cannot burrow ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... "This inundation was very destructive to the Mission house, or rather the Mission premises. A slip of the earth (somewhat like that of an avalanche), took place on the bank of the river near my house, and gradually approached it until only about ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... by some fixed inscrutable law. This same mysterious law seems also to connect these events with the astronomical wave or cycle, which governs the periodicity of solar spots. The periods when the European powers have shown the most destructive energy are marked by a cycle of fifty years' duration. It would be too long and tedious to enumerate them from the beginning of history. We may, therefore, limit our study to the cycle beginning with the year 1712, when all the European nations were fighting each ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of contemporary secret history does not need to refer to the "key" to discover that the woman whose power to charm Savage was so destructive to Eliza's peace of mind was that universal mistress of minor poets, the Mira of Thomson, the Clio of Dyer and Hill, the famous Martha Fowke, who at the time happened to have fixed the scandal of her affections ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... we are in, which engaged me to discourse to you on this subject, to exhort you to a love of your country, and a public spirit, when all you have is at stake; to prefer the interest of your prince and your fellow subjects before that of one destructive impostor, and a few ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... ridiculous, and yet not in earnest enough to make themselves really miserable. They must have plenty of time to spare, and not be distracted by business, serious study, political excitement, or other disturbing causes. On the other hand, to get too much absorbed, and arrive at Werther's end, was destructive not only to the individual player, but to the spirit of the game. As the century grew older, and this danger of absorption grew stronger, that game became more and more difficult to play seriously enough, and yet not too seriously. When the players did not blow their ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... until we were in the latitude of the river La Plata. Here there are violent gales from the south-west, called Pomperos, which are very destructive to the shipping in the river, and are felt for many leagues at sea. They are usually preceded by lightning. The captain told the mates to keep a bright look-out, and if they saw lightning at the south-west, to take in sail at ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... to account for the blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's cause and people in these poor nations."[33:2] It was such men who, on December 6th, 1648, to save the kingdom from a new war or from a peace destructive of everything they had fought for,[33:3] purged the House of Commons of its "malignant" members; and who cut the Gordian knot of the difficulties that beset the nation by bringing the King, who seemed ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... Feb. 4.-Regrets at their absence, and anxiety for their return. Destructive tempest. The rival Opera-houses. Taylor's pamphlet against ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... uncertain factors in the situation which gave the opponents of Confederation an opportunity for destructive criticism. The measure was subjected to the closest scrutiny by critics who were well qualified to rouse any hostile feeling in the country if such existed. Weighty attacks came from dissentient ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... public buildings, and especially in the chapel, that the greatness of Wykeham, as an architect, is best seen. In spite of the destructive fanaticism of the Reformation, and the almost equally destructive "restorations" of the notorious Wyatt, and of Sir Gilbert Scott (who inexcusably raised the height of the roof), the chapel still is indisputably the finest in Oxford. And its glass ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... is no evil more destructive of the best interests of Society, or confessedly more difficult to deal with remedially, than that which is known as the Social Evil. We have already seen something of the extent to which this terrible scourge has ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... that the orange and lemon culture in Southern California would be a failure. The enemies were the black, the red, and the white scale. The latter, the icerya purchasi, or cottony cushion scale, was especially loathsome and destructive; whole orchards were enfeebled, and no way was discovered of staying its progress, which threatened also the olive and every other tree, shrub, and flower. Science was called on to discover its parasite. ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... support their projects, and are most determined anti-Gallicans." This, as time has demonstrated, was a most unjust and ungenerous charge. So thoroughly was Mr. Jefferson then imbued with the spirit of the French revolution, in its most democratic and destructive aspect—so bitter was his hatred of monarchy and aristocracy—that his judgment seemed entirely perverted, his usual charity utterly congealed; and every man who differed with him in opinion was regarded as a conspirator against the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... opened on the castle. The fire from the ships and the launch's carronades having cleared the gardens in front of the castle, the signal was made to push on. The marines on this advanced with their invariable gallantry to the assault; but when they got within thirty yards of the towers, a destructive fire was opened on them from a crenelated outwork, having a deep ditch in front, which was completely masked from the fire of the ships, and numbers fell killed and wounded. In vain Captain Robinson and the other officers looked for some part of the castle wall which ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... must make those mines more productive somehow or other; they would be so, but the count would not hear of it; he said it was so inhuman, they were so destructive ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Year, threatens the gentlemen of England on every occasion of its periodical return, have been greatly aggravated and augmented by the terms of Her Majesty's said Most Gracious communication, which have filled the heads of divers young ladies in this Realm with certain new ideas destructive to the peace of mankind, that never entered ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... of a civilisation in which a tolerable place has been but tardily provided for them. We cannot escape the conclusion that our treatment of the races we have displaced and exterminated has been as systematically and remorselessly destructive as was the spasmodic and ofttimes sportive cruelty operated by the Spaniards. The Spanish national conscience recognised the obligation of civilising and Christianising the Indians, a task which Spaniards finally accomplished. The Spanish sovereigns were honestly desirous of ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Cork. He had set up at once as the model landlord, eager for his tenantry's welfare, full of advanced ideas, a violent politician, liberal to the verge of radicalism. If the Irish Church had not been disestablished before Lord Mallow went into Parliament, he would have gripped his destructive axe and had a chop or two at the root of that fine old tree. Protestant, and loyal to the Church of England in his own person—so far as such loyalty may be testified by regular attendance at divine service every Sunday morning, and a gentlemanlike reverence for bishops—it seemed to him not the ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... to fit him for democracy. He should read the Old Testament as a preparation for an appreciative perusal of the New Testament. If the home cannot generate in him due respect for constituted authority, then the school must do so, or he will prove a menace to society and become a destructive rather than a constructive agency. Here we have a tense situation. Anarchy is running riot in the home; the home is arrayed against the attempts of the school to correct the disorder; and Democracy is standing expectant to see ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... the children are constantly asking him to come and play with them, which he seems quite pleased to do, and then his mind is so eccentric, so inventive. The new games he devises are very ingenious, but so exceedingly dangerous and destructive that it is absolutely necessary to check him, and I want you to ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... the son of Loki the Evil Principle of Scandinavia, supposed to have personated the element of fire, destructive except when chained ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive war, waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, both spiritual and temporal, against what do you think? One thing I am sure of. That unless I told you, you would never know; nor how they waged that war either; ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... the functions of mind and assign to them an appropriate nomenclature. It is not unusual for scientists to give advice to phrenologists and point out the fallacies of their system; but it is hardly worth while to indulge in destructive criticism, unless something better is offered, as the day has passed for ridiculing endeavors to understand and interpret the physiology of the brain. The all important question is, not whether phrenologists have properly located and rightly earned all the faculties of mind, but ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... opening than those which are conical. Small shot fired at a short distance make one large ragged opening; while at distances greater than 3 feet the shot scatter and there is no central opening. The Lee-Metford bullet is more destructive than the Mauser. The former is the larger, but the difference in size is not great. The Martini-Henry bullet weighs 480 grains, the Lee-Metford 215, and the Mauser 173. Speaking generally, a gunshot wound, unlike a punctured wound, becomes larger ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... in that region, wolves were abundant and very destructive. The neighbors, for quite a distance, combined for a great wolf-hunt, which should explore the forest for many miles. By the hunters thus scattering on the same day, the wolves would have no place of retreat. If they fled before ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... itself under his authority. It is necessary to consider, as the last topic of this article, whether this affiliation can be allowed to be true. No one who has read any of Newman's works can doubt that he would have recoiled with horror from the destructive criticism of Loisy, the contempt for scholastic authority of Tyrrell, and the defiance hurled at the Papacy in the manifesto of the Italian Modernists. Newman's doctrine of Development was far removed from that of Bergson's 'L'Evolution Creatrice.' He ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... eccentricities, its individualities. His "Philosophical Letters" revealed to Europe not only a country where utterance and opinion were unfettered, but a new literature and a new science; while his intercourse with Bolingbroke gave the first impulse to that scepticism which was to wage its destructive war with the faith of the Continent. From the visit of Voltaire to the outbreak of the French Revolution, this intercourse with England remained the chief motive power of French opinion, and told ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... in such a formation, they would be exposed to a destructive raking fire from the enemy's guns; especially since the adoption of the new flank march by fours, which gives to rifled ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... weapons I thought them! But, they were only babies to the big rifled breechloaders now in vogue; albeit they did tidy enough work in the destructive line in their day, as the annals of our navy can tell, and other nations have experienced to their cost both on ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... came the more they were believed. On a certain occasion a crowd of them was brought together: Crows built in the temple of Juno. A green tree took fire. The waters of Mantua became bloody. In one place it rained chalk in another fire. Lightning was very destructive, sinking the temple of a god or a nut-tree by the roadside indifferently. An ox spoke in Sicily. A precocious baby cried out "Io triumphe" before it was born. At Spoletum a woman became a man. An altar was seen in ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... frequent squalls during rainy season; relatively rare, but potentially very destructive typhoons (especially ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... interesting, and often profitable. With it, the disputants gain each a more obstinate belief in his own doctrines; and the excitement is steadily destructive to the best health of ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... our identity, that of which we are chiefly conscious, we glory in the continuity of our species, and learn to regard death without terror. But when any whole nation becomes the victim of the destructive powers of exterior agents, then indeed man shrinks into insignificance, he feels his tenure of life insecure, his inheritance on earth ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... bad Tannese Chief living on Aniwa, had a quarrel with Mungaw about a cask found at the shore, and threatened to shoot him. Others encouraged him to do so, as Mungaw was growing every day more and more destructive and violent. When any person became outrageous or insane on Aniwa, as they had neither asylum nor prison, they first of all held him fast and discharged a musket close to his ear; and then, if the shock did not bring him back to his senses, they tied him up for two days or so; and ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... always seemed to part from him with reluctance; but it was because she had no longer any one with whom she could visit her favourite haunts, whilst her guardian was occupied in sketching or uncovering some fragment which had yet escaped the destructive hand of time. She had appealed to her parents on the subject of Vampyres, and they both, with several present, affirmed their existence, pale with horror at the very name. Soon after, Aubrey determined to proceed upon one of his ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... result is heat, flame, combustion of the intensest description. The famous Drummond Light, that a few years ago astonished Europe what is that but the ignited flame of a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen projected against a small piece of lime? What was harmless as water, becomes the most destructive of all known objects when decomposed and ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... came forward in gallant style; until suddenly, from every wall and every clump of bushes on the slopes above them, a tremendous fire of musketry broke out, while the twelve field guns, six of which were posted on either side of Charlie's centre, poured a destructive fire into them. So deadly was the rain of iron and lead that the Mahratta horsemen instantly drew bridle and, leaving the ground strewn with their dead, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... out, and at last, while he is hard at work, in he tumbles. It is the conviction spoken in the proverbs of all nations, expressed here by David in a figure drawn from life—the conviction that all sin digs its own grave and is self-destructive. The psalm does not proclaim the yet deeper truth that this automatic action, by which sin sets in motion its own punishment, has a disciplinary purpose, so that the arrows of God wound for healing, and His armour is really girded on for, even while it seems to be against, the sufferer. But ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... for information of the proceedings of the bank. Were they bound to disregard the call? Was it their duty to remain silent while abuses of the most injurious and dangerous character were daily practiced? Were they bound to conceal from the constituted authorities a course of measures destructive to the best interests of the country and intended gradually and secretly to subvert the foundations of our Government and to transfer its powers from the hands of the people to a great moneyed corporation? ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... from intemperance are so numerous and so destructive of human happiness and life, as to command universal attention. Not only does intemperance greatly increase pauperism and crime, but it often leads to sad calamities which might ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... competent heads, in the proper place, should be precluded. In doing this they have used, or sanctioned the use of, arguments which may he applied with equal or even greater force to the carrying of any measure whatever, no matter how atrocious in its character or destructive in its consequences. They have appealed directly to the argument of the greater number of voices, no matter whether the utterers were drunk or sober, competent or not competent; and they have done the utmost in their power to rase out the sacred principle in politics of a representation of interests, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... I watched the sleeping monster I cannot tell, but it was some time before I woke up to the fact that I had come on purpose to put an end to its destructive career, and that I had a gun ready charged in my hand lying ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... inhibition in question never had and never could have any legitimate and binding force. We may seek in vain for any power in the convention, either to require or to accept a condition or restriction upon the cession like that insisted on; a condition inconsistent with, and destructive of, the object of the grant. The cession was, as recommended by the old Congress in 1780, made originally and completed in terms to the United States, and for the benefit of the United States, i.e., for the people, all the people, of the United ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... began to rise and the sea began to roughen. The men discharging the cargo hastened their work, and it was evident that the last of the lighter barges would soon be setting out for the shore. Ned was staring at them and recalling all the yarns he had heard concerning the destructive power of a gulf "norther," when Captain Kemp came walking slowly toward him, with a face which appeared to express no sort of unusual concern for anything in the world. ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... count in the indictment of Socialism is that it is contradictory to Nature to such a degree as to make its permanence unthinkable because destructive not only of human comfort and ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... six ages preceding our own, may be traced to it. The frightful French Revolution was certainly a result of it, although it must be granted that several secondary causes contributed to render the catastrophe more destructive, the chief among which was the spread of infidel doctrines among the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... equally important matter of adult efficiency; we have to adjust affairs, if we can, to secure the maximum of health, sane happiness and vigorous mental and physical activity, and to abolish, as far as possible, passionate broodings, over-stimulated appetites, disease, and destructive indulgence. Apart from these aspects, sexual morality is outside the scope of the New Republican altogether. . . . Do not let this passage be misunderstood. I do not mean that a New Republican ignores sexual morality except on these grounds, but so ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... In common fairness and in common candour, I feel myself compelled to give my decisive verdict against the conduct of men whose measures I firmly believe to have been hostile to British interests, destructive of British glory, and subversive of the splendid and, I trust, lasting fabric of the ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... schools of philosophy, depicted the wild vagaries into which many had wandered, and the unsatisfactory results to which all had attained. Not content with these instances of the insufficiency and mocking nature of human wisdom and learning, he adverted to the destructive tendency of the Helvetian and D'Holbach systems, and, after a brief discussion of their ruinous tenets, dilated, with some erudition upon the conflicting and dangerous theories propounded by Germany. Then ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... easy, and in every person's power to execute, as the liquor, by being cleared, from its gross feculences, will not run into that violent fermentation, so destructive to the fine vinous flavor, which renders good cider ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... sunrise or after sunset, seldom failing to bring home a wild fowl or two of some kind or other. And sometimes of an afternoon they would go out for a ride with their sisters, and have a chase after an ostrich, or a run after the grey foxes, which abounded, and were very destructive among the young lambs. Once or twice during these rides the boys brought a puma to bay; but as they always carried a ball in one of their barrels, with these and their revolvers they soon despatched their ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... spread the pestilence, of tropical climates. The humidity of the atmosphere, and the damp heats which are nourished amidst its intricate thickets, produce violent fevers, which often prove extremely destructive, especially to European constitutions. But if the patient survives the first attack, the remedy is at hand; a journey to the temperate climate of the elevated plateau soon restores health; and the sufferer is as much revived ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... be necessary in the development of this work as we proceed, to slightly modify our conception of the aetherial atom, but that modification will rather be of a constructive character, than a destructive one. There may also be certain objections to meet and explain away when we deal with the phenomena of light, heat, and electricity, and Gravitation, and the part which the aetherial atom plays in those phenomena, but these objections I hope to meet ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... against the railroad companies that he would have been in favor of almost any legislation that would in any way restrict them in their reckless disregard of the rights of the people. I can only conclude that the Senator from Alabama would rather that destructive system should go on, as he charged it to exist when he made his speech the other day, without control, than to trust a commission who he says are individually liable to corrupt influences either at the hands of the President or somebody ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... The fire was especially destructive on the right or upper end of the line where the river made a short bend. As Logan, with a valor equal to that of his illustrious namesake, swept forward, he and his men found themselves directly at the backs of the Indians ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... Physical Professors who have written on Foreign Teas, is designed to shew, by the most forcible Arguments and distinguished Authorities, the extreme Danger to which the Public are exposed from the continual Use of an Article so pernicious and destructive to ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... probability, than one man declared he saw the fin of a shark. No language can convey an idea of the panic which seized the struggling seamen; a shark is at all times an object of horror to a sailor; and those who have seen the destructive jaws of this voracious fish, and their immense and almost incredible power—their love of blood and their bold daring to obtain it, alone can form an idea of the sensations produced in a swimmer by the cry of "a shark! ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... destructive than the wit of an Englishwoman; she gives it the eloquent gravity, the tone of pompous conviction with which the British hide the absurdities of their life of prejudice. French wit and humor, on the other hand, is like a lace ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... in the foulest atmosphere, or in the midst of dense smoke. Although the metal miner is subjected to fewer accidents than are his brethren working in coal mines, the atmosphere in the former is far more destructive to human life. In lead mines, the duration of life averages scarcely more than thirty-two years, and in those containing arsenical pyrites or quicksilver ores, the average is still lower. Before the use of gunpowder in underground operations, ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... because of this character), the Siouan organization was highly unstable; with every shock of conflict, whether intestine or external, some autocrats were displaced or slain; and after each important event—great battle, epidemic, emigration, or destructive flood—new combinations were formed. The undoubtedly rapid development of the stock, especially after the passage of the Mississippi, indicates growth by conquest and assimilation as well as by direct propagation (it is known that the Dakota ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee |
