"Devastate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... get the brains behind them, if we have to send every warship we own into the z'Srauff star-cluster and devastate every planet in it. We don't let dogs snap at us. And when they do, we don't kick them, we ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... size-change principle of the space-globe? And Groff had gotten the secret. An abnormality here—Groff with the power of evil latent within him, tempted by this opportunity. What could he have hoped to accomplish? Of what use to him would it be to devastate this little realm? Bitter irony swept Lee. Of what use was vast personal power to anyone? Those madmen of Earth's history, with their lust for conquest—of what use could the conquest be to them? And yet they had ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... crops are cultivated for local consumption, although Guadeloupe is still dependent on imported food, mainly from France. Light industry features sugar and rum production. Most manufactured goods and fuel are imported. Unemployment is especially high among the young. Hurricanes periodically devastate the economy. ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... operations immediately succeeding Fredericksburg. Picket fighting; cavalry skirmishes, severe but fruitless; and temporary raids of the enemy to devastate the country around the rear of their army, and to penetrate into that beyond their lines, occupying the winter and early spring. But there was full leisure for the people to look upon the ugliest features of the war. Fredericksburg was a ruin, riddled ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... to the kingdom of Israel; "Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken that it shall not be a people any more," chap. vii. 8. Upon Judah also severe sufferings shall be inflicted by Asshur. He shall invade and devastate their land, chap. vii. 17, and chap. viii. He shall irresistibly penetrate to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, chap. x. 28-32. But when he is just preparing to inflict the mortal blow upon the head of the people of God, the Lord shall put a stop to him: "He shall cut down ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... France, was sent for, in the hope that as Regent he would compose discords. In the summer of 1515 he arrived. In the meantime, Dacre, in charge of the English border, had been fomenting quarrels [Footnote: Lang, Hist. of Scotland, i., 395. L. & P., ii., 779, 795.] and suborning outlaws to raid and devastate in the border counties, and plotting unsuccessfully to have James carried off into England to the tender care of his uncle. Albany, for his part, demanded the custody of the child, which was refused by Margaret; ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... forced to hear things which sadden me deeply. The chaplain reads the papers aloud to us, and I see that the republic loses daily in power and dignity; the neighboring powers invade it under divers pretexts; their troops pillage and devastate the country, while the Government refuses to interfere.... I dare not think of the future, but my father says we must enjoy the present. All speak in subdued tones of the woes which threaten Poland, and then dance ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... horrible frontiers of the Void He had watched in vain, lit red with beacon-fires The desperate coasts o' the black abyss, whence none Ever returned, though many a week he watched Beneath the Cross; and only saw God's wrath Burn through the heavens and devastate the mountains, And hurl unheard of oceans roaring down After the lost ships in one cataract Of thunder and splendour and fury and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... heat so near the surface over a large tract of country was very impressive, and I could hardly divest myself of the notion that some terrible catastrophe might at any moment devastate the country. Yet it is probable that all these apertures are really safety-valves, and that the inequalities of the resistance of various parts of the earth's crust will always prevent such an accumulation of force as would be required to upheave and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... pleasaunce of the upper world, on a sheltered slope of ever-burning Gedeh, quiescent now save for the blue curl of sulphurous smoke, which gives perpetual warning of those smouldering forces ever ready to devastate the surrounding country. Subterranean activity increases during the rainy season, and tremors of earthquake occasionally startle the equanimity of those unused to the perils of existence on this thin crust of Mother ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... to the empire of the world that the German genius aspires" (Kaiser Wilhelm, Speech at Aix-la-Chapelle, June 20, 1902)—a nation thus armed, instructed, disciplined, and demoralized had broken loose. Another Attila had come, with a new horde behind him to devastate and change the face of the world. In the tumult and darkness which enfolded Europe, the Werwolf was at large. We could hear his ululations in the forest. The cries of his victims grew louder, piercing our hearts with pity ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... most part opposed to it. When Clay, in the lofty style common to the time, declared the Americans unconquerable, and that if the enemy should lay in ashes New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and should devastate the whole Atlantic coast, the people would retreat beyond the Alleghenies to live and flourish there, a member from New Jersey protested that this was too high a price for him; that he had no inclination to go beyond the Alleghenies; ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... favorite. There are other trees of which they eat the bark, and the young roots of the bamboo form a large source of their food supply. Rice is, however, their favorite article of food, and they often devastate whole plantations in a single night. It is fortunate that the slightest fence will keep them away from any spot so protected: a single blow of their trunks would destroy a bamboo fence, but they never attempt it. Some idea, of which ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... head; and then almost in silence he followed his guide, often feeling disposed to try and shoot one or other of the nocturnal birds that flitted silently by, or one of the great fruit bats that, longer in their spread of wings than rooks, flew in flocks on their way to devastate some ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... they were visited by savage strangers from the north, whom they treated hospitably. Soon these visits became more frequent and annoying. Then their troublesome neighbors, ancestors of the present Utes, began to forage upon them, and at last to massacre them and devastate their farms. So, to save their lives at least, they built houses high up on the cliffs, where they could store food and hide away until ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... often saw them raging madly and sublimely in the mountains. They would burn for weeks at a stretch, and devastate hundreds of miles of country. For ourselves, we always prepared for such emergencies by "ringing" our dwelling—that is to say, laying bare a certain stretch of country in a perfect circle around us. Often we were ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... an extraordinary, uncouth, primeval impetuosity. The door flew open with a clatter, and the wild figure it disclosed seemed anxious to devastate the room in leaps and bounds; but Ricardo raised his open palm, and the creature came in quietly. His enormous half-closed paws swung to and fro a little in front of his bowed trunk as he walked. Ricardo ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the advance on Washington, "rested from their work in the fields contiguous; and the awe-struck peasants and yeomen of this portion of America beheld with perturbation the tremendous preparations to devastate their blooming country." ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... contagion smites the flocks, nor blight of any star With fury of remorseless heat the sweltering herds doth mar. Nor this the only bliss that waits us there, where drenching rains By watery Eurus swept along ne'er devastate the plains, Nor are the swelling seeds burnt up within the thirsty clods, So kindly blends the seasons there the King of all the Gods. That shore the Argonautic bark's stout rowers never gained, Nor the wily she of Colchis with step unchaste profaned; The sails ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... roar of wind that shook his window-sashes, as if it said, "We will get in and spoil your pleasure, whether you like it or not"; and there was a shower of bullets, as from a Maxim, that threatened to smash in and devastate ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... intention. I should like to return to the city seated by your side; and as the good inhabitants of Innspruck are very anxious to see a French general, one of Bonaparte's generals, who does not come with his troops to devastate the city, to rob and plunder, I request you to let us make our entrance ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... great country, your Nueva York," he said. "Truly the cars in the streets devastate one, and the engine that cooks the nuts terribly makes a squeak in the ear. But, ah, Senor Kelley—the senoras with hair of much goldness, and admirable fatness—they ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Lawrence; nine days later they entered Lake Ontario, to the amazement of a party of Iroquois whom they met there. The governor gave these Indians a message for the Senecas and the other nations, stating that he wished to keep the peace, but that, if necessary, he could come and devastate their country. The demonstration had the desired effect and there was no ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... said the visitor. "Not so very much to see after all. Little streaks and shreds of pink. And yet those little particles, those mere atomies, might multiply and devastate a city! Wonderful!" ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... those a kingdom's weight who bear. Slay, Rama, slay this impious fiend, For by no law her life is screened. So Manthara, as bards have told, Virochan's child, was slain of old By Indra, when in furious hate She longed the earth to devastate. So Kavya's mother, Bhrigu's wife, Who loved her husband as her life, When Indra's throne she sought to gain, By Vishnu's hand of yore was slain. By these and high-souled kings beside, Struck down, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... history of wars has taught us nothing. We haven't heard much of plagues and epidemics yet, in the carefully censored reports from London, but it won't be long before disease will devastate whole armies." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city—men, women, and children—are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these reasons they will ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Jesus and then martyred themselves for their falsehood is as intellectually stupid and silly as it is morally monstrous! Not otherwise these leading men of the South were men of the loftiest character, of great personal worth, patriotic, high-minded, and they did not devastate their land and martyr themselves for idle abstractions. Here is John C. Calhoun, ranked by all as one of the triumvirate—Webster, Calhoun and Clay. Here is Gen. Robert E. Lee, of whom Lord Wolsey said that for one State to have given birth to two such men as ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... steps are followed by Arjuna and Krishna and Bhima and Satyaki and the two sons of Madri and the warriors of the Srinjaya race. That wielder of the Gandiva, Savyasachin, seated on his car, would alone be able to devastate the whole world. And likewise the victorious and high-souled Krishna, the lord of the three worlds, incapable of defeat is able to do the same. What mortal would stand before him who is the one worthiest person in all the worlds and who discharges his multitude of arrows that roar like the clouds, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... opportunity of throwing off the galling yoke, and the people chafed under the exactions and cruelty of the tribute-collectors, whilst the Khans took precautions to prevent insurrection, and threatened to devastate the country if their authority was not respected. But in the course of time this mutual distrust and hostility greatly lessened. When the Princes found by experience that all attempts at resistance were fruitless, they became reconciled to their new position, and instead ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... sins, but only because it is good for them to reflect on their sins at all times and under any circumstance. Nowadays you would have your well-water analysed and ask what the Sanitary Inspector had been about. Or, again, if a fire were to devastate our little town, we should not smite our breasts in the manner of those same forefathers, and attribute it to what there is amongst us of sloth and self-indulgence, to God's wrath upon our drinking habits or our neglect of Sunday observance: we should trace it to a foul chimney and translate ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... when their assembly would have been justified by the exigency of the crisis. But while the Athenians remained inactive behind their walls, the cavalry was sent out on skirmishing expeditions, and a large fleet was sent to the Peloponnesus with orders to devastate the country in retaliation. The Spartans, after having spent thirty or forty days in Attica, retired for want of provisions. AEgina was also invaded, and the inhabitants were expelled and sent to the Peloponnesus. Megara was soon after invaded by an army under Pericles himself, and its territory ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... incessant climbers and foragers, peering into crannies, pounding here and there to make the grubs stir in their hiding places, jabbing and prying with their beaks, and chiseling out all kinds of larvae, grubs, and borers that would, if permitted to live and multiply, soon devastate the timber and fruit trees and make this world a desert indeed. True, the other feathered clamberers and carpenters are fully as useful, but depend upon it, the nuthatches do their share in ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... peace.... He shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth.... all kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him" (Psalm lxxii). Under His gracious reign of power famines and pestilences can no longer devastate this earth. Sickness and diseases will be banished and those who obey the laws of His kingdom will continue to live on earth, so that death, the common thing now, as the wages of sin, will become uncommon during the coming age. What a glory ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... the French from approaching their frontier. Since that time, however, in spite of the battle of Pultusk, the Russians have steadily retreated, although the enemy did not compel them to do so. They accomplished thus their own purpose, that is, to devastate a province of Prussia, and protect themselves by this desert from ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... about 90 percent of the energy is released in less than one millionth of a second. Most of this is in the form of the heat and shock waves which produce the damage. It is this immediate and direct explosive power which could devastate the urban centers in a major ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
... We shall not go down there until we need. When we must descend we shall find an abundance of maize, and fruits of all sorts. The savages kill the people they find on the estates, but do not destroy the crops or devastate the fields. They are wise enough to know that these are useful to them, and though they are too lazy to work themselves they appreciate the good things that others ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... I a river, I would gladly let all honest anglers that use the fly cast line in it, but, where there is no protection, then nets, poison, dynamite, slaughter of fingerlings, and unholy baits devastate the fish, so that 'Free Fishing' spells no fishing at all. This presses most hardly on the artisan who fishes fair, a member of a large class with whose pastime only a churl would wish to interfere. We are now compelled, if we would catch fish, to ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... becomes sadly conscious that his entire time, purpose, energies are being simply, with his own dull consent, "melted down for the tallow trade," and that he himself is by way of being on a far more perilous margin than that of any one of the gently depressed spirits who devastate his days, and command him to create for them,—not energy, purpose, will,—but, instead, external conditions in which they may more luxuriously enjoy their romantic languor and their comforting consciousness of ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... play a thrilling part in the world's history; to change the aspect of the heavens everywhere; to attract the wondering gaze of nearly all nations, and to devastate its immediate neighbourhood—is of volcanic origin, and, at the time we write of (1883) was beginning to awaken from a long, deep slumber of two hundred years. Its last explosion occurred in the year 1680. Since that date it ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... compelled by the revelations of the accomplices, by their own handwriting, and by what I may almost call the voices of their letters, were confessing that they had planned the parricidal destruction of their country, and that they had agreed to burn the city, to massacre the citizens, to devastate Italy, to destroy the republic; who could have existed without being roused to defend the common safety? especially when the senate and people of Rome had a leader then; and if they had one now like he was then, the same fate would ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... he may not devastate the land of Zunire, nor the dwellings which are belonging to ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... something still to live for; and, if we are able to abandon the sentimental view and look facts in the face—as many anointed chaplains in Europe are doing—science not only eliminates typhoid but is able to prevent those terrible diseases that devastate armies and nations. And science is no longer confined to the physical but has invaded the social kingdom, is able to weave a juster fabric into the government of peoples. On all sides we are beginning to embrace the religion of self-reliance, a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... altogether the question of infanticide, such a state of things is far from incredible when we remember the extremely insanitary state of China, the superstitions that flourish unchecked, and the famines, floods, and pestilences that devastate the country. It would appear probable that when vital statistics are introduced into China they will reveal a condition of things very similar to that we find in Russia, but in a more marked degree. No doubt it is a state of things which will ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... lightning-strokes; and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. Upon these tokens quickly followed a great famine:—and a little thereafter, in that same year, on January 8, pitifully did the invasion of heathen men devastate God's church in Lindisfarne Island, with plundering and manslaughter. And Sicga died on ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... love each other, and do not keep me in ignorance of what concerns you. My heart is full to bursting and the remembrance of you eases it a little from its perpetual disquiet. I am afraid lest these barbarous guests devastate Croisset; for they continue in spite of peace to make themselves odious and disgusting everywhere. Ah! how I should like to have five billions in order to chase them away! I should not ask ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... she might have wasted her time breaking hearts and slapping faces in some country village. He it was set her devastating society; and with his aid she shall devastate you.—Vandeleur, will ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... words, in his breast, As he heard them, in one maddening moment releast All that's evil and fierce in man's nature, to crush And extinguish in man all that's good. In the rush Of wild jealousy, all the fierce passions that waste And darken and devastate intellect, chased From its realm human reason. The wild animal In the bosom of man was set free. And of all Human passions the fiercest, fierce jealousy, fierce As the fire, and more wild than the whirlwind, to pierce And to rend, rush'd upon him; fierce jealousy, swell'd ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... this same Blacklock went bad about two summers after our meet-up with the blizzard. He worked down Yuma way and over into New Mexico, where he picks up with a sure-thing gambler, and the two begin to devastate the population. They do say when he and his running mate got good and through with that part of the Land of the Brave, men used to go round trading guns for commissary, and clothes for ponies, and cigars for whisky ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... warm-blooded creatures. If, for instance, the Worm of Lambton—if such ever existed—were guided to its own ends by an organised intelligence capable of expansion, what form of creature could we imagine which would equal it in potentialities of evil? Why, such a being would devastate a whole country. Now, all these things require much thought, and we want to apply the knowledge usefully, and we should therefore be exact. Would it not be well to resume the subject later ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... be eaten up by this vast horde of locusts, no great injury was done to them; for, as we now know, the seventeen-year locusts do not appear upon earth to destroy crops and vegetation, being far different from the grasshopper-like locusts which in our Western countries sometimes devastate large sections of farming lands. The twigs of the trees, which had been punctured in order that the eggs might be deposited, recovered their life, and put forth their leaves again when they had ceased to act as ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... attempted to harass the Roman forces by attacking them on many sides, as not likely to prove sufficient to meet all attacks. While the camp was being besieged, at the same time part of the army was sent to devastate Roman territory, and to make an attempt upon the city itself, should fortune favour. Lucius Valerius was left to guard the city: the consul Postumius was sent to prevent the plundering of the frontiers. There ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... champion of the fray, With brandished colt, comes Felix Holt, all of the Modern day. And Silas Lapham's six-shooter is cocked: the Colonel's spry! There spurs the wary Egoist, defiance in his eye; There Zola's ragged regiment comes, with dynamite in hand, And Flaubert's crew of country doctors devastate the land. On Robert Elsmere Friar Tuck falls with his quarter-staff, Nom De! to see the clerics fight might make the sourest laugh! They meet, they shock, full many a knight is smitten on the crown, So ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... large boats to be built with all possible speed. The news of this spread through the town, and when the reasons were asked and the reply was given that the boats were in anticipation of a mighty flood that would ere long devastate the entire region, everyone screamed with laughter; but ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... with the tolerance of fond people, and smile over his weaknesses, and say that he was incorrigible. All the same, it continued to irritate me. Sometimes I could see that he hurt her, when in his impatient way he swung round to devastate her opinions with those sly and unanswerable phrases that placed everything once and for always in a ridiculous light. What a devilish gift he had, that man, of humiliating one! And he did it always in so smiling and friendly a fashion that one could ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... Becker, "their weakness is of more service to them than the strength of the noblest trees, and they are spread and multiplied by the same tempests that devastate the forests. Added to this, the species to which this class of plants belong—the grasses—are remarkably varied in their characteristics, and better suited than ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... issue as the law, action, and decision of the State; as the wise old Egyptian kings conveyed in different canals, by sub-division, the swelling waters of the Nile, and compelled them to fertilize and not devastate the land. There must be the jus et norma, the law and Rule, or Gauge, of constitution and law, within which the public force must act. Make a breach in either, and the great steam-hammer, with its swift and ponderous blows, crushes all the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... office, post, position, situation, appointment. Plan, design, project, scheme, plot. Playful, mischievous, roguish, prankish, sportive, arch. Plentiful, plenteous, abundant, bounteous, copious, profuse, exuberant, luxuriant. Plunder, rifle, loot, sack, pillage, devastate, despoil. Pretty, beautiful, comely, handsome, fair. Profitable, remunerative, lucrative, gainful. Prompt, punctual, ready, expeditious. Pull, draw, drag, haul, tug, tow. Push, shove, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Island the coastal range recedes and is of much lower elevation, and to these facts perhaps is to be attributed our modified rainfall compared with the plethora of the immediate North; but we get our share, and when people deplore the droughts which devastate Australia, let it be remembered that Australia is huge, and the most rigorous of Australian droughts merely partial. This country has never known drought. During the partial drought which ended with 1905, and which occasioned ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Lord in her own home, and was the first nun of the sisterhood she founded. Moreover when she was preaching at Aix a fearful dragon by the name of Tarasque inhabited the river Rhone, and came out each night to devastate the country until Sainte Marthe was the means ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... life until he has witnessed that fearful spectacle. A summer breeze conveys no more idea of a tornado, nor a burning chimney of a volcano, than ordinary vices convey of that fearful ruin which any elemental passion works when permitted to devastate a soul, unrestrained. The sight filled Mantel with terror, and he felt himself compelled by some invincible necessity to plead with the man in the name of the Saviour of the world. Long and earnestly he besought him to forgive as ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... ravage, depredate, despoil devastate, sack; corrupt, vitiate, debase, mar, demoralize, deprave, sophisticate, infect, defile, contaminate; disfigure, deface, damage; decay, addle, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... there in sufficient number to afford a good day's sport under other circumstances, while a profusion of various kinds of flowers afforded satisfaction to the eye, in strong contrast to the bare and barkless trunks of trees riven by the frequent storms that devastate these hills. In one place a most gruesome sight was met with. Under a small tree beside a tiny stream stood a three-legged cooking-pot, and round it lay three skeletons, with a scattering of shrapnel bullets to silently tell the story of the tragedy. Beside one body lay a Rifleman's haversack, ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... of a great share of the crime and consequent misery which devastate the world. The clerk who spends more than he earns, is fast qualifying himself for a gambler and a thief; the trader or mechanic who overruns his income, is very certain to become in time a trickster and a cheat. ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... ignorant of the laws and careless of the feelings of the English. He was accustomed to the military license of France, and had learned from his great kinsman, the conqueror and devastator of the Palatinate, not indeed how to conquer, but how to devastate. A considerable number of prisoners were immediately selected for execution. Among them was a youth famous for his speed. Hopes were held out to him that his life would be spared If he could run a race with one of the colts of the marsh. The space through which the man kept up with the horse ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to a great extent, to be explained. Travellers in the country agree in describing them as irregular mounds, deeply seamed by the rains; and the sides against which the storms and waterspouts that devastate Mesopotamia would chiefly spend their force are those on which the damage is most ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... of his rebellious subjects in Belgium. Maddened to ferocity by the failure of his plans, he devoted the whole people to destruction, and he sent his best-equipped armies, under the terrible Duke of Alva, to devastate the cities of the dikes as Pizarro had destroyed the homes of the Incas. After innumerable atrocities, and the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children, the remnant of freedom was preserved by the obstinacy of ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... under the Great Seal. There was good reason to fear that the lords, by their deputies, might impose upon them new rents and services. They might demand new surveys and new patents for land which had long been occupied. They might, in fact, completely devastate the government of all its ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... "God's acre" is scarcely an acre, and it should be enclosed. Flat slaty stones, suitable for wall, lie around in abundance, brought down by the avalanche, which a year or two ago endangered the station, but happily did no more damage than destroy the powder-house and devastate the burial-ground. Kegs of powder and tombstones were carried far out on to the ice of the bay. Most of the latter were recovered unbroken and replaced, and among them the one of which we are in search. Here it is, a simple square slate tablet ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... carry down my current as I go Not common stones but precious gems to show; And tears (the holy water from sad eyes) Back to God's sea, from which all rivers rise Let me convey, not blood from wounded hearts, Nor poison which the upas tree imparts. When over flowery vales I leap with joy, Let me not devastate them, nor destroy, But rather leave them fairer to the sight; Mine be the lot to comfort and delight. And if down awful chasms I needs must leap Let me not murmur at my lot, but sweep On bravely to the end without one fear, Knowing ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... this corrective was tested. It was in the case of a sulky dog of a breed between the red Irish setter and something larger, but less patrician, upon whom the thirst for blood fell at uncertain intervals, impelling him then to devastate the very sheepfolds of which in his capacity as watch-dog he might have been considered as ex officio the guardian. This vile malefactor had been ordered for execution, and the noose was already coiled for his caitiff neck, when a neighbor of his master's—a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... France and Belgium is shaped like the letter L, and the Somme battle was waged at the angle of the letter just where the line was farthest from Germany. Of course it would be madness to attempt to finish the war on German soil, if to do it we should have to devastate one-eighth of France and its fairest ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... is the difference: The government which formerly fed and housed these monsters, under cunning kennels of perverted law, and broke open holes in the palisades of society, that they might crawl through and devastate the community, now shuts up every crevice through which they could enter; stops every hole of opportunity; crushes down every uprising instinct of cruelty and selfishness. And the wolves have disappeared; and our little world is a garden of peace ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... some small attentions on deck. And that is all. Under such conditions, signs can be seen only by a sharp and practised eye. I am alluding now to troubles which are subtle often to the extent of not being understood by the very hearts they devastate or uplift. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... thing it is boldly to carry terror against an enemy, and, removing the danger from oneself, to bring another into peril? Can there be a stronger instance than Hannibal himself, or one more to the point? It makes a great difference whether you devastate the territories of another, or see your own destroyed by fire and sword. He who brings danger upon another has more spirit than he who repels it. Add to this, that the terror excited by unknown circumstances is increased on that account. When you have entered the territory of an enemy, you ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... planted under the windows of you," raved Schmetz, "the demon hens of le docteur Geddes are with their paws upturning! They upturn with rapidity and completeness, led by a shameless hog of a rooster. Is it the orders of you that I devastate those ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... develop cleaner technology, and to produce more energy at home. I have sent you Clear Skies legislation that mandates a 70 percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years. I have sent you a Healthy Forests Initiative, to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife, and burn away millions of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Province, where the peasants considered locusts a dainty dish, payment was offered to the parish priest for him to say Mass and pray for the continuance of the luxury. In former times, before there were so many agriculturists interested in their destruction, these insects have been known to devastate the Colony ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the flood of invaders poured in. No fewer than two hundred thousand men were now under the orders of the French generals, and advanced from different directions, in all cases carrying out the orders of the Convention, to devastate the country, burn down the woods, destroy the crops, and slay the inhabitants. Five armies moved forward simultaneously, that commanded by Kleber consisting of ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... natural than that he should most ardently long to talk with the older schoolboys about the wonders of the real world, where people ride in coaches, devastate cities, marry princesses, and stay up in the evening till after 10 o'clock—even if it isn't a birthday. And then at the table one helps one's self, and may select just whatever one wants to ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... raw Tucupi, the juice of the mandioca root. Bowls of this are placed on the ground in the sheds where the women prepare farinha; it is generally done carelessly, but sometimes intentionally through spite when stray oxen devastate the plantations of the poorer people. The juice, is almost certain to be drunk if cattle stray near the place, and death is the certain result. The owners kill a beast which shows symptoms of having been poisoned, and retail the beef in the town. Although every one knows it cannot ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... supremacy, Full of delight do I as a goddess walk supreme. Ishtar, the goddess of morning am I, Ishtar, the goddess of evening am I, (I am) Ishtar,—to open the lock of heaven belongs to my supremacy. Heaven I destroy, earth I devastate,[461]—such is my supremacy. The destroyer of heaven, the devastator of the earth,—such is my majesty. To rise up out of the foundation of heaven, Whose fame shines among the habitation of men,—such is my ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... destroy all kinds of vegetation that comes in their way, and direct their course to the cultivated fields, which they desolate until the period when their wings appear. They then take flight in order to devastate more distant plantations. ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... whip, the creak of the disselboom. They followed the spoor of a company of elephants in the East country, they watched through the November mist the blesbok flying across the veld, a herd of quaggas taking cover with the rheebok, or a cloud of locusts sailing out of the sun to devastate the green lands. Through the smoky smell of London there came to them the scent of the wattle, the stinging odour of ten thousand cattle, the reek of a native kraal, the sharp sweetness of orange groves, the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wild things in the wild mountains stopped in their hunting, and trembled at this new and awful voice, while down in the desert the children of the wilderness came out of their goatskin tents and looked toward the mountains, wondering what new and savage scourge had come to devastate their flocks. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... suffer badly from the attacks of Peronospora viciae, which is the cause of Pea Mould, yet the most deadly foe to Peas, especially late Peas, is a fungus of a totally different character. To such an extent does the Pea Blight sometimes devastate the later Peas, particularly in dry summers, that the whole crop is in some gardens completely annihilated. The name of the fungus of the Pea Blight or Mildew is Erysiphe Martii. Its attack is often made suddenly; the leaves then lose ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... appoint a national fast day. The English minister, to his credit, advised the Presbytery of Edinburgh that it was better to cleanse than to fast, and cleanse they must swiftly or else, in spite of all prayers and fastings of a united but inactive nation, the cholera would devastate them. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... sailor or one in conversation's straits. His terror is the long, cold storm which covers the grass with a hopeless coating of ice. The weakened ewe cannot graze, and the norther comes down with a bitter sweep to devastate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... came probably from a fear of profanation of the dead, perhaps of their being eaten by a victorious enemy. To devastate the cemeteries and temples of the foe was an aim of every invading tribe. It was considered that mutilating a corpse injured the soul that had ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Vilna to Vitebsk are full of endless lines of troops, squadrons of cavalry in close formation, and enormous baggage trains. The Russians know that their freedom is in danger; they burn their own towns and villages, devastate their own provinces, and retire little by little, as they did a hundred years earlier when Charles XII. invaded Russia. At length there is a battle at Moscow, and the French army enters the town. We ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... children live? You are trembling like geese, you do not know what is good to do: no one gives an answer to the enemy, and our desolated land is abandoned to the incursions of all nations. The barbarians harass the frontier, rebels violate it every day, every one robs it, enemies devastate our seaports, they penetrate into the fields of Egypt; if there is an arm of a river they halt there, they stay for days, for months; they come as numerous as reptiles, and no one is able to sweep them back, these wretches who love death and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... throats for air; of the merciless attack on the prison asteroid; of the helpless ships Coxine had looted. All these things and more flashed through the curly-haired cadet's mind as he weighed his life and the lives of his unit-mates against an attack that would devastate the small satellite of Jupiter. Tom could see through the pirate's demand for the recognition signal. Once inside the Ganymede radar screen, he could attack the Solar Guard garrison and wipe it out before it could raise a ship ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... and a hell, quite quelled Lisbeth Fischer. She gave up all idea of rivalry and comparison with her cousin after feeling her great superiority; but envy still lurked in her heart, like a plague-germ that may hatch and devastate a city if the fatal bale of wool is opened ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... slave trade were based on a purely economic motive—the desire for profit. In order to satisfy that desire, the American people helped to depopulate villages,—to devastate, burn, murder and enslave; to wipe out a civilization, and to bring the unwilling objects of their gain-lust thousands of miles across an impassable barrier ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... knowing our destitution of gun-boats, and well apprised of the paucity of our garrisons, are sending expeditions southward to devastate the coast. They say New Orleans will be taken before spring, and communication be opened with Cairo, at the mouth of the Ohio. They will not succeed so soon; but success is certain ultimately, if Mr. Benjamin, Gen. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... look. And even though I were of royal station like your own, your heart, in its loyalty, would suffer none save the son of the Infante of Fortune, who has won it, to speak to you of love. But just as in a great war necessity compels men to devastate their own possessions and to destroy their corn in the blade, that the enemy may derive no profit therefrom, so do I risk anticipating the fruit which I had hoped to gather in season, lest your enemies and mine profit by it to your detriment. Know, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... cloak. SARK suggests that this interesting robe should be put up for sale to highest bidder (as if it were the First L1 note), proceeds to be contributed to Fund for Relief of Belgians. This would give opportunity for remarking that having taken off his coat to devastate the homes of the Belgians, WILHELM gave them his ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... out with fresh gladness in their song. A hammer can pound ice to powder, but every particle is still unconquered ice, and only the gentle kiss of the sun can subdue and melt it into sweet water. High explosives and poisonous gas can devastate the earth, but only the balmy breath of the springtime can clothe it in verdure and cause it to burst into bud ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... matter what his strength might be. When he crept out like a sneaking burglar from under a hearth-stone, or through an over-heated flue, they would "have at him" with the hand-pumps and quench him at once. When he came forth like a dashing party of skirmishers, to devastate a wood-yard, or light up a music-hall with unusual brilliancy, they sent an engine or two against him without delay, and put him down in an hour or two. When he attacked "in force," they despatched engine ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... came out of Asia to devastate Europe, at length turned Christian, adopted a Slavic speech, and entered the family of European nations. The Magyars, who followed them, also made their way into the fellowship of Christendom. Quite the opposite has been the case with the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... ignorant soldiers and workers seduced by them cry senselessly: Down with the Government! All power to the Soviets! And the Dark servants of the Tsar and the spies of Wilhelm will egg the on; Beat the Jews, beat the shopkeepers, rob the markets, devastate the shops, pillage the ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... "I know a man who was talking with a wounded Tommy, and he...." "An undergraduate friend of my boy's who is just back from France...." Once stories begun in this way would empty a room; but not so now. Now they no longer devastate but fascinate. It does not matter what the stories are about, the fact remains that an opening gambit which three months ago would stamp a man as a triple bore now holds everyone breathless. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... pleasing and charitable and devout and virtuous testament or will, Mistress Merrylack," said Mr. Bossolton; "and in a time when anarchy with gigantic strides does devastate and devour and harm the good old customs of our ancestors and forefathers, and tramples with its poisonous breath the Magna Charta and the glorious revolution, it is beautiful, ay, and sweet, mark you, Mrs. Merrylack, to behold a gentleman of the aristocratic classes ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Cesare's patience exhausted, he issued an ultimatum from his camp at Sartiano in which he declared that if, within twenty-four hours, Petrucci had not been expelled from the city, he would loose his soldiers upon Siena to devastate the territory, and would treat every inhabitant "as a Pandolfo and ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... cocoanuts, oil being extracted from the latter. Among the medicinal plants the most highly valued is the catbalonga seed. Commerce is quite active in spite of the few means of communication and the dangerous coasts. The island is visited yearly by tornadoes which devastate crops and cause much damage to agriculture. The high mountains and thick forests of the interior are inhabited by a great number of savages who have sought refuge here. The area is 4,699 square miles, and the population 200,753, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... of miracles is close at hand, Etna, the home of eternal fire. Deep in the heart of earth dwell two irresistible forces, wind and fire.[347] It is their conflict that causes the outbursts of flame and molten rock that devastate the slopes of Etna. It is no smithy of the gods, no Titan's prison. The causes are natural, water and wind and fire. He has seen Etna; he describes the crater,[348] the volcanic rock that can imprison fire,[349] the clouds that continually veil the mountain's crest,[350] ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... history of thousands-of Jeromes, Lauds, Puritans who scourged Quakers, Quakers who cursed Puritans; nonjurors, who though they would die rather than offend their own conscience in owning William, would plot with James to murder William, or to devastate England with Irish Rapparees and Auvergne dragoons. This, in fact, is the spiritual diagnosis of those many pious persecutors, who though neither hypocrites or blackguards themselves, have used both ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... sprang between him and the canvas. "Stop! I could easier see some savage devastate the beauty of these Hills. Wait! I swear to leave it as it is. I swear that no eyes but ours shall rest upon it; but you shall ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... world is one is to-day's commonplace. What causes its new solidarity? What but the countless hands that reach across its shores and its Seven Seas, hands that devastate and hands that heal! There are the long fingers of the cable and telegraph that pry through earth's hidden places, gathering choice bits of international gossip and handing them out to all the breakfast tables of the Great Neighborhood. There are the ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... future time if not now, we can punish South Carolina as she deserves, and as thousands of the people in Georgia hoped we would do. I do sincerely believe that the whole United States, North and South, would rejoice to have this army turned loose on South Carolina, to devastate that State in the manner we have done in Georgia, and it would have a direst and immediate bearing on your ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the entire country, gave it the name of Franken-ric—the Franks' kingdom. Eventually, Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, descended from Childeric the Frank, was in 800 crowned Emperor of the West. Towards the end of his reign, the Norsemen began to devastate the northern coast of Franken-ric. Aix-la-Chapelle was Charlemagne's capital, and there he died and was buried. At his death, the Empire was divided among his sons. The Norse Vikingers continued their invasions; ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... stood upon these limits, and awaited his speedy acquiescence to the act of partition. [Footnote: Raumer, "Contributions to Modern History," vol. iv., p 516.] The Russian empress added that, if Stanislaus did not call a convention of the Polish Diet to recognize the act, she would devastate his land, so that he would not have a silver spoon left to him. [Footnote: Raumer, "Contributions to Modern History," ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... carefully removed and destroyed everything living or dead, one can imagine the conditions under which we had to exist. No doubt from a strategical point of view the enemy could not be expected to do otherwise than devastate the country, but what grieved us most was the great amount of suffering this entailed to our women and children. Often the waggons in which these were being carried to imprisonment in the Concentration Camps were upset by the unskilful driving of the soldiers or their kaffir ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... regard the forest as an heritage, given to us by nature, not for spoil or to devastate, but to be wisely used, reverently honored, and carefully maintained. I regard the forest as a gift entrusted to us only for transient care during a short space of time, to be surrendered to posterity again as unimpaired property, with increased ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... and bird, And strangers to the plant and to the mine. The injured elements say, 'Not in us;' And night and day, ocean and continent, Fire, plant and mineral say, 'Not in us;' And haughtily return us stare for stare. For we invade them impiously for gain; We devastate them unreligiously, And coldly ask their pottage, not their love. Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us Only what to our griping toil is due; But the sweet affluence of love and song, The rich results of the divine consents Of man and earth, of world beloved ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... prejudice-warped judgments of both, and, from the beneficial effects there, I have nothing to fear from the immediate abolition of slavery. I fear, rather, the violent consequences from a continuance of the evil. But should such an act devastate the whole State of Louisiana, and render the whole soil here but the mere passage-way of the fruits of the enterprise and industry of the Northwest, it would be better for the country at large than it is now as the seat of disaffection ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... and it is he that the ego-friskish imitate. Such a critic in the jovial person of Mr. Chesterton, or Professor Phelps, or Heywood Broun, contributes much to the vividness of our sense for books. But their imitators, although they sometimes enliven, more often devastate reviewing. ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... swift and more like a hen. But there is nothing gallinaceous about my Georgiana. I took possession of her vow and the emery-ball, not of her; the privilege was merely given to plant my flag-staff on the uncertain edge of an unknown land. In war it sometimes becomes necessary to devastate a whole country in order to control a single point: I should be pleased to learn what portion of the earth's surface I am required to subdue ere I shall ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... great many Southern Slavs, the Sultan, had in his time been satisfied if he could squeeze out of the Montenegrins so much tribute as would every year pay for his slippers. He could send an army now and then to devastate Cetinje and destroy the monastery where the people's bishop lived, but in those mountains a large army ran the risk of being ambushed and a very large one would be starved. Besides, now that the European scientists and travellers were beginning to go up to Montenegro ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... day or in what night. All will be manifest to them—they will know and understand whether a calamity will come, a famine or wild beasts, floods or drought; whether there will be abundance of grain or dearth; whether the wicked will rule the world; whether locusts will devastate the land; whether the fruits will drop from the trees unripe; whether boils will afflict men; whether wars will prevail, or diseases or plagues among men and cattle; whether good is resolved upon in heaven, or evil; whether blood will flow, and the death-rattle of the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Odo's fear of his grandfather to hatred, had he not observed that the old man gave with one hand what he took with the other, so that, in his dealings with his people, he resembled one of those torrents which now devastate and now enrich their banks. The Marquess, in fact, while he held obstinately to his fishing rights, prosecuted poachers, enforced the corvee and took toll at every ford, yet laboured to improve his lands, exterminated the wild beasts ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... that had taken possession of Marcy's mother—that possibly the Union forces might ascend the Roanoke River, capture Plymouth, and devastate the surrounding country—now took possession of Marcy also. Northern soldiers had not yet been given an opportunity to show the merciful way in which the inhabitants of captured cities were to be treated during the war, and Marcy may be pardoned for looking into ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... what this could mean to American security," he went on. "If enemy subs slipped through our continental defenses, their missiles could devastate the United States with scarcely an instant's warning! The whole country's been rocked by the announcement. An official comment by our Defense Department is expected at ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... this time, too, a particular tang of romance was in the air. The Germans had threatened to devastate our Atlantic coast from Eastport to Key West with a flock of submersibles. There actually were a few submarines lurking about the pathways of our coastwise shipping; but, as usual, the Hun's ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... in Nature. We might well ask why the myriads of bacteria do not devastate the earth with their marvelous rapidity of propagation. So indeed they might, were it not for the winds, rains, melting snow and ice which scatter them far and ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... responsibility which attaches to it, and become colder instead of warmer, the deeper and more imperative that the claims upon them become. Such people are not as a rule unhappy, because they are spared the pain which arises from the strain of intimacy, and because loss and bereavement do not rend and devastate their hearts. They miss perhaps the best kind of happiness, but they do not suffer from the penalties that dog the great affections ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... unfortunate men being laid low by scurvy,' said I. 'Since lime-juice has been regularly stored and served out in our navy, surely that disease, which used to devastate it, has almost disappeared? Was there ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens |
