"Unsettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... changes of opinion on the part of public men, when unaccompanied by sufficient outward motives, and in the teeth of their own recorded words and actions, are unseemly in themselves, and calculated to unsettle the faith of the country in the political morality of our statesmen—and because we fear that a grievous, if not an irreparable division has been thereby caused amongst the ranks of the Conservative party. Neither have we hesitated—after giving all due weight to the arguments adduced ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... ignorant of traffic, and it might unsettle her opinions of her uncle's stability. If a man does not maintain credit within his own doors, how can he expect it ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... ranges round Mount Kosciusko, stated that, from indications he had observed, he was firmly persuaded of the existence of gold in these mountains; but the Governor asked him, as a favour, to make no mention of a theory which might, perhaps, unsettle the colony, and fill the easily excited convicts with hopes which, he feared, would prove delusive. Strzelecki agreed not to publish his belief; but there was another man of science who was not so easily to be ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... reasons here stated, and in view of the fact that further uncertainty on this point will be calculated to obstruct other much-needed legislation, to weaken the discipline of the service, and to unsettle salutary measures now in progress for the government and improvement of the Indians, I respectfully recommend that the decision arrived at by Congress at its last session be ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... Some would ignore the pertinacious outsider and persuade their followers that he is negligible; others would sustain an energetic campaign against him. Some would openly and candidly meet the questions of their followers; others would prefer not to unsettle the large number who never ask questions. At the present juncture it is impossible to be wholly silent. Some of the clergy, it seems—I learn this from the recorded words of eminent preachers—wish to ignore the war and go on with their business as usual. ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... evident that the skipper was very fidgety, so I thought I would not further unsettle him by obtruding my own opinion—which coincided with his—upon him; therefore, finding him slightly disposed to be taciturn, I left him, and made the round of the deck, assuring myself that all hands were on the alert, and ready to go to quarters ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... friend's attitude was a little too much like that of the Muggletonians. I also remarked a singular timidity on his part lest somebody should "unsettle" somebody's faith,—as if faith did not require exercise as much as any other living thing, and were not all the better for a shaking up now and then. I don't mean that it would be fair to bother Bridget, the wild Irish girl, or Joice Heth, the centenarian, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... we do trustfully petition that this wearisome psalm-sharp, this miauling meter-monger, this howling dervish of hymns devotional, may strain his trachea, unsettle the braces of his lungs, crack his ridiculous gizzard and perish of pneumonia starvation. And may the good Satan seize upon the catgut strings of his tuneful soul, and smite ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... doting all alike; and where one alone must speed, what shall become of the rest? Hero was beloved of many, but one did enjoy her; Penelope had a company of suitors, yet all missed of their aim. In such cases he or they must wisely and warily unwind themselves, unsettle his affections by those rules above prescribed,— [5856]quin stultos excutit ignes, divert his cogitations, or else bravely bear it out, as Turnus did, Tua sit Lavinia conjux, when he could not get her, with a kind of heroical scorn he bid Aeneas take her, or with a milder farewell, let ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... an education as could only be secured by remaining behind, and he knew in his heart that there was reason in what his father had said to him of the danger there was that the voyage and the new scenes in a strange land might unsettle his mind from his books. It cost him something to seem content, even while his father was speaking to him, and he knew well it would grieve the rest to know he was to be left behind, so he would say nothing about it, on this first night of ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... conclusion is, that States having a good seaboard, or even ready access to the ocean by one or two outlets, will find it to their advantage to seek prosperity and extension by the way of the sea and of commerce, rather than in attempts to unsettle and modify existing political arrangements in countries where a more or less long possession of power has conferred acknowledged rights, and created national allegiance or political ties. Since the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the waste places of the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... charger was all mettle, And soon won to the middle of the stream— But then the sky grew black as a tea kettle; It rained, too, quite as fast as ever steam Rose. But the thing which did at last unsettle The balance of John's steed, was what you'll deem A being that was nearly supernatural— But here the waves John's clothes began ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... spiritual nose which served the Western man of that day in place of a map and guide-book. Westward the course of empire had taken its way, but excepting these poor vestiges it had for some fifteen hundred miles left no trace of its march. The Indian of the plains had as yet seen little to unsettle his assurance of everlasting dominion. Of the slender lines of metal creeping slowly toward him from East and West he knew little; and had he known more, how could he have foreseen their momentous effect upon his ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... reckless in his generosity towards Lowe, for his actions from beginning to end of his career prove that he was a dreadful creature. The thought of him and of those incarnate spiders who kept spinning their web, and for six mortal years disgracing humanity, is in truth enough to unsettle one's reason. Vainly they had ransacked creation in search of persons in authority to support them in the plea of justification, but never a soul came forth to share what is now ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Theodora was summoned home; for her mother was too unwell and dispirited to do without her any longer. Her father offered to come and take her place, but Arthur and Violet decided that it would be a pity to unsettle him from home again. Arthur was now able to sit up for some hours each day, and Percy undertook to be always at hand. He was invited to Brogden for Christmas; but it was agreed between him and Theodora that they must deny themselves the pleasure of spending it together; they thought it ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the conspiracy? Since you have so much of his confidence, you might warn him to be careful. Doubts of our father's wisdom must unsettle him woefully. I do not ask to join the alliance, but it may please you to know that in my belief Hetty has been treated too fiercely for her deserts, and in my sermon I intend to hint at ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... all charades and dressing up at a party is that they make away with so much valuable time of the players who are out of the room, and unsettle those who are left in. It should be the first duty of every one taking part in acting at parties to decide quickly on the subject or word, and to perform it quickly. Many and many a party has been spoiled by the slowness of the actors ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... of our patriotism and in sight of our willingness to yield all the blood or brawn or brain necessary for the advancement of our common country, we simply beg that you cast not away your ideals, that you do not unsettle the foundations of your democracy when you come to deal ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... should you dread secular education, except that it is against you? Why impede the circulation of books which take religious views opposite to your own? Why forbid your children and scholars the free perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light literature which you fear would unsettle their minds? Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun those, if you think that your friends have reason on their side as fully as your opponents? Truth is bold and unsuspicious; want of self-reliance is the mark ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... other. In Rome the oligarchy was too powerful to be subverted by force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies, though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest against men who possessed the whole property of the state. Hence the necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society, and to take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, and the agrarian laws—propositions absurdly condemned by men who do not consider the circumstances from which they sprung. They ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ease might unsettle their minds, he crosses the Pyrenees with the rest of his forces, and pitches his camp at the town Illiberis. The Gauls, though they had heard that the war was directed against Italy, yet because there was a report that the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... lowered during her brief recital, to rise to her husband's face. "My dear mother died a day or two afterwards. She died regretting having to own even what she did, and begging me not to think unkindly of my father, and not to unsettle your mind by telling you what could do ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts to me are sacred; none are profane. I simply experiment—an endless seeker, with ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... ineffectual in dragging it down, had been enough to unsettle the little bridge; and when Derriman reached the middle, which he did half a minute later, the plank turned over on its edge, tilting him bodily into the river. The water was not remarkably deep, but as the yeoman fell flat on his stomach he ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... "penetration," divested his large heavy face of all expression, and looked at his wine-glass while Lydgate was speaking. Whatever was not problematical and suspected about this young man—for example, a certain showiness as to foreign ideas, and a disposition to unsettle what had been settled and forgotten by his elders—was positively unwelcome to a physician whose standing had been fixed thirty years before by a treatise on Meningitis, of which at least one copy marked "own" was bound in calf. For my part ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... morals, are so well understood, that it is not probable that the efforts even of Jefferson Davis, or the whole 'Southern confederacy,' with the aid of such transatlantic allies as the London Times, will be able, in respect to such matters as these, to change or even to unsettle the judgment of mankind. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that evening, when they were all talking it over in the family council, "I hope you didn't drop anything, when that poor creature spoke to you about it this morning, that could unsettle her mind in ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... no means encouraging. Given the long record of disappointment there, and the many men who previously had died there, the fact that several hundred of the most recent settlers had succumbed might have been expected to unsettle any administration. Perhaps it was the king's interference, serving as it did to rally the adventurers in defence of the company's liberty. Perhaps Sir Thomas was guilty of too naked a display of his power, with the result ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... result would be to oblige the Government of the United States to enter the courts ostensibly to assert and protect its title to said land, while in point of fact it would be used to enforce private claims to the same and unsettle private ownership. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... to you about, you cross thing? Oh! Kossuth. Well, then, here is an immensely interesting person, whom we invited over here to settle, and who is much more likely to unsettle us. How far would you have him unsettle us? To the extent of carrying us into a war with Russia, or of banding us, with all liberal governments, in a war with the despotic governments, so that Europe should be turned into a caldron of blood for years to come, millions of people sacrificed, [227] ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... any sound. Looking around, she saw, disappearing from an old road that led away to Tushielaw, the last of the king's troops; and she omened sadly that they had completed their work. She hesitated again, whether she should proceed to a place where she would inevitably behold a sight that might unsettle her reason. But whether could she fly? What could she do? Her little children were there; it was still her home, and the dead body of her beloved husband was also there. But judgment might vacillate according to its laws; her ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... make such a statement, for his country had provided the best illustration in history of the importance of a good job of spanking. It was force that had settled the slavery question—and settled it so that now you might travel in the South and have a hard time to find a man that would want to unsettle it. ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... critical. I could foresee a catastrophe which would for ever unsettle the two towns, and give the valley an unenviable reputation. I was certain that, if Roscoe or Mr. Devlin were present, a prohibitive influence could be brought to bear; that some one of strong will could stand, as it were, in the gap between them, and prevent a pitched battle, and, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it, you had locked your bedroom, and taken away the key. I went into my own to unsettle the bedclothes, as usual, and give the bed the appearance of having been slept in. Now, a variety of circumstances concurred to bring about the dreadful scene through which I was that night to pass. In the first place, I was literally overpowered ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... he answered, "are divided among the firms in London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, and it would be impossible for them to be combined and used to unsettle the markets of the world. But Mr. —— could do this and prevent ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... this supposition is open to the same objection as that which made him the motive power in this murder. One is not driven insane by an expected horror. It takes shock to unsettle the brain. He was not looking for the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... helped to unpack and settle camp, though, if the truth were told, perhaps they did more to unsettle it than otherwise. But Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were used to this, and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... 1915 and the large decrease in foreign immigration resulting from the World War. Then came the cotton boll weevil in the summers of 1915 and 1916, greatly damaging the cotton crop over considerable area, largely in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, and threatening greatly to unsettle farming conditions in the year 1917.[17] There followed then the cotton price demoralization and the low price of this product during subsequent years. The unusual floods during the summer of 1915 over large ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches. Sometimes there is an element of self-interest in the proposed reformation, as when a publisher wanted a duty imposed on books, to keep Americans from reading books which would unsettle their Americanisms; and when artists wanted a tax laid on pictures, to save Americans from buying ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... undulation in the ground when a ball struck him in the breast; from daybreak he had been oppressed by gloomy presentiments. "I have been too long making war in Africa," said he; "the bullets of Europe know me no longer." On falling he said to General Boudet, "Conceal my death; it might unsettle the troops." The soldiers had perceived it and rushed forward to avenge him. Kellermann arrived at the same instant, urged forward by one of those sudden inspirations which mark great generals; hurling his dragoons upon the Austrian cavalry, which he broke through, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... that would signify or prove nothing. Would water, air, earth, fire, be less useful to man whether they were or were not elements? Such errors are of no consequence; they lead to no revolutions, do not unsettle the mind; above all, they injure no interests, so they might, without inconvenience, endure for millions of years. The physical world would progress just as if they did not exist. Would it be thus with errors which attack ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... with me under the moonlit Citadel, at the head of a by-lane leading to the Trapps' cottage. "I shall not write often, or see you," she said. "It is seldom that I get a holiday or even an hour to myself, and we will not unsettle ourselves"—mark, if the child could not, the noble condescension—"in our duties that are perhaps the more blessed for being stern. But a year hence for certain, if spared, we will meet. Until then be a gentleman always and—I may ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... know. And that is why I have always wished you and the vicar could be brought together. I have—yes, I own to it—I have been afraid sometimes you were a little unsettled about religion, and that it might unsettle Georgie, too. But I knew if you once met the vicar that would all be set right. As I often say to George, let anybody just see Dr. Nevington and then they will begin to have an inkling of all they miss in not hearing ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... lie at the wharf of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. He delights to hear the sails of old opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss for him to repeat again and again: "Do not disturb my opinions. Do not unsettle my mind; I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let me go backward ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... prototype has also threatened to unsettle the world with respect to the history of the seventh-day Sabbath. If he proceeds with it as he has with the unerring word of God, our minds will have to be remodelled, to believe with him. If any of the little flock feel desirous of spending an hour in looking ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... comes I must part with dear Margaret," she said to herself. "It will not do to have the two together. Alec may possibly attempt to impress his opinions on her mind, and may unsettle it should he fail to do more permanent injury; or, even should he keep them to himself, her sweet disposition, and other attractive qualities, may win his heart, while she may give her's in return, and I am ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... loftier regions of spiritual desire, here, in the first part of it, he is wrestling with his afflicting circumstances, whatever they were, and he has no hesitation in spreading them all out before God and asking for His delivering help. Wishes that are not turned into prayers irritate, disturb, unsettle. Wishes that are turned into prayers are calmed and made blessed. Stanley and his men lived for weeks upon a poisonous root, which, if eaten crude, brought all manner of diseases, but, steeped in running water, had all the acrid juices washed out of it, and became ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... him to recover himself. In order to avoid their own conscience, intelligent, serious, honourable men do not blush to employ the little tricks of a woman or a child trying to get its own way; and dreading a discussion which might unsettle them, they would seize on the first awkward expression used by Clerambault. They would separate it from the context, dress it up if necessary, and with raised voices and eyes starting from their heads, feign an indignation which they ended by feeling sincerely. They would ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... anxious moment to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... exclaimed the captain, his military pride reviving a little, to unsettle his last convictions of duty. "Did you open your columns, and charge your enemies, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... books are bereft of the binding; and in attempting to replace the covers, Hudibras gets the cover which belongs to "Barnes on the Acts of the Apostles." An earthquake in the room would be more apt to improve than to unsettle. There are marks where the inkstand became unstable and made a handwriting on the wall that even Daniel could not have interpreted. If, some fatal day, the wife or housekeeper come in, while the occupant is absent, to "clear up," a damage is done that requires weeks to repair. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... about the young lady," said the bookseller. "I don't want all you young blades dropping in here to unsettle her mind. If she falls in love with anybody in this shop, it'll have to be Joseph Conrad ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... ever stand in the way of the boys' pleasure or profit, but I think it is truer kindness to have them go along quietly on the paths they have chosen. Bertie is happy and contented enough now, but he's a high-spirited lad, fond of the sea almost passionately; a voyage, be it ever so short, may unsettle his mind for the office. Eddie is discontented enough already; I don't really see what good can come of it. Of course, I don't really think that either of the boys is going to make his fortune, recover Riversdale, and live there in peace and plenty, ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... point. They were accepted by the whole people, and their stability was a subject of national pride. There were two great parties, each of which scented in every measure projected by the other a design to unsettle the balance between the States and the general government, but both claimed to be the guardians of the Constitution, and their mutual rancor was founded mainly on jealousy. But for the existence of slavery, and the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... look at. He was very pious, and knowed lots o' things. Least, I don't know if he was pious, fur he didn't go to church, but he'd his own thoughts o' things, an' he was steady, an' kep' himself to himself. He niver telled me his thoughts o' things—he said it 'ud unsettle me like—but he taught me reading; an' mother, she liked his coming constant to see us. As fur as I knows, he was a good man; but I tell ye, Johnnie, that man had a will—whatsoever thing Dan'el McGair wanted, that thing he mun have, if he died i' the getting. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... present the fact to be noted is that the authorized reviewers are both in honor and in duty bound to keep themselves absolutely clear of controversial bias. The movement is not a movement to alter in any slightest respect the dogmatic teaching of the Church, not a movement to unsettle foundations, not a movement toward disowning or repudiating our past, but simply and only an endeavor to make the Common Prayer, if possible (and we are far from being sure, as yet, that it is possible), a better thing of its kind, more comprehensive, more elastic, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... and whether the negroes were honest, and sound, and all that. Well, though I looked out as often as I well could with civility, I saw nothing of you, and began to fear that something had happened to unsettle the whole plan; but, after a while, I saw Peter, with his mouth drawn back and hooked up into his ears, with his white teeth glimmering like so many slips of moonshine in a dark night, and I then concluded that all was as it should be. But seeing ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... we serve the cause of progress just as you do. We only hold together what you are unsettling, and what, but for us, would go to pieces in all directions. We are not your enemies, not a bit of it. We say to you, go forward, progress, you may even unsettle things, that is, things that are antiquated and in need of reform. But we will keep you, when need be, within necessary limits, and so save you from yourselves, for without us you would set Russia tottering, robbing her of all external decency, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... them—and, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, "it lifted up its head and did address itself to motion, as it would speak." But they began to quiver, and he once more screwed them together, as if he feared the very exertion of uttering a word or two might unsettle his moniplies. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... of view, dear Governor, but perhaps you don't altogether get mine. Isn't it so? I am settled. What you mean by being settled, would unsettle me, completely. I'm cut out for just such an existence as this; to live four floors up in an attic, get my own breakfast, and have a charwoman to do for me. I should be awfully bored with an establishment. I'm quite content with a ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... their tendency, or at least a departure from the patristic standard, that Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, collected in four books the various sayings of the Fathers concerning theological dogmas. He was also influenced to make this exposition by the "Sic et Non" of Abelard, which tended to unsettle belief. This famous manual, called the "Book of Sentences," appeared about the middle of the twelfth century, and had an immense influence. It was the great text-book of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... wouldn't hurt you, though it would be disagreeable, an' I should be sorry to have you put to that inconvenience. But the wind and the water may unsettle the foundation o' your house, the chimney bein' on the outside, an' no support to it. Even that would not certainly put you in danger, as the frame would likely float. But I knew, ef sech a thing should happen, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... not be more profitable and humane, than to disturb them with formalities that have no virtue in themselves—to distress them with useless controversies, that settle no one point, teach no one doctrine, but unsettle and unfix all the good that our simple creed had previously built ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... "believe me, monarchy, even at the present day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing can adequately ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... deter her; and so thereafter he would have to listen periodically to long accounts of her psychological agonies, and help her to hunt out the "hob-goblins" from the tangled thickets of her mind. They were forever settling the matter, positively and finally—but alas, only to have something unsettle it again. So Thyrsis had to add to his other accomplishments the equipment of a psycho-pathologist; he brushed up his French, and read learned treatises upon the researches in the Salpetriere, and the theories of ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... is now a question whether or not an added impulse can be communicated from without. Such an impulse must (a) unsettle all the old beliefs, (b) inspire an era of skepticism, (c) reintroduce the old struggle of ideas between the Insurgent and the Standpatter, and Radical and the Conservative, (d) in the meantime furnish, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... feeble and so trifling that if he be not accustomed to contemplate the wonders of human imagination, he will marvel that one century has gained for it so much pomp and reverence. The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice. We must, it is said, get back to the natural and fundamental laws of the State, which an unjust custom has abolished. It is a game certain to result in the loss of all; ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... Winthrop should succeed in bringing the work to perfection, Brewster begs him to remember his wife and children. "I mean if this my work should miscarry by wars of the Indians, for I may not remove it till it be perfected, otherwise I should so unsettle the body by removing sun & moon out of their settled places, that there would then be no other afterworking." Once more he inculcates secrecy, and for a most comical reason: "For it is such a secret as is not fit for every ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of political ingratitude. Great regenerating transactions were being initiated—the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization scheme. Anything that could unsettle the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided. Don Jose bowed to these arguments and tried to dismiss from his mind the gold-laced portent in boots, and with a sabre, made meaningless now at last, he hoped, in the new ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... principalities may descend to females by hereditary right, it did not appear to me necessary to move the question, not only because the thing would be most invidious; but because in my opinion it would not be lawful to unsettle governments which are ordained by ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... Mrs. Starling made no attempt to unsettle them; on the other hand, she fell into a condition of permanent unrest which I do not know how to characterize. It was not ill-humour exactly; it was not displeasure; or if, it was displeasure at herself, but it was ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... they could obtain it. Indeed, they had no particular regard for their own leader, who was arrogant, and by no means liberal. Profiting by these important hints, the general sent a conciliatory letter to Narvaez, beseeching him not to unsettle the natives by a show of animosity, when it was only by union they could hope for success, and declaring that for his part he was ready to greet Narvaez as a brother in arms, to share with him the fruits of conquest, and, if he could ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... fittest for such a task would have succeeded,—full allowance is, at the same time, made for the great martyr of genius himself, whom so many other causes, beside that restless fire within him, concurred to unsettle in mind and (as he himself feelingly expresses it) "disqualify for comfort;"—whose doom it was to be either thus or less great, and whom to have tamed might have been to extinguish; there never, perhaps, having existed an individual ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... brain and your too strong affection For Albert, fighting with your other passion, Unsettle you, and give reality 240 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to wit, warlike pursuits are full of unrest, so that they hinder the mind very much from the contemplation of Divine things, the praise of God, and prayers for the people, which belong to the duties of a cleric. Wherefore just as commercial enterprises are forbidden to clerics, because they unsettle the mind too much, so too are warlike pursuits, according to 2 Tim. 2:4: "No man being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular business." The second reason is a special one, because, to wit, all the clerical Orders are directed to the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... to co-operate with Stoneman's raid, which at these dates should have been well on Lee's rear, and to unsettle Lee's firm footing preparatory to the heavy blows Hooker was preparing to deliver; but, as Stoneman was delayed, these movements failed of much of their intended effect. Nevertheless, Jackson's corps was drawn down to the vicinity, and remained ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... for morality, when adherence to principle may possibly cause them some trouble, and perhaps lead to some loss. If the Southern plant has not become the tyrant of Europe, as for a long time it was of America, it has certainly done much in a brief time to unsettle English opinion, and to convert the Abolitionists of Great Britain, the men who could tax the whites of their empire in the annual interest of one hundred million dollars in order that the slavery of the blacks in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... have cured him—and with a blessing shall cure him better still, if that is any consolation to you. From being a purple Orangeman, I have him now hard at work every day at his Padderheen Partha. But I now caution you not to unsettle the religious principles of Darby O'Drive, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... together, she rests her head on my shoulder, holds my hands and half shuts her beautiful eyes while we settle what our future life shall be, when I cover her with kisses and inhale the odor of all those little hairs that are as fine as silk and are like a halo round her imperial brow, excite me, unsettle me, kill me, and yet I feel inclined to shed tears, when the time comes for us to part, and I really only exist ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... erroneously alleged that Se-quo-yah was a believer in, or practiced, the old Indian religious rites. Christianity had, indeed, done little more for him than to unsettle the pagan idea, but it ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... about hit it there. He went to California, and came back with five and twinty thousand pounds. I met him in Liverpool the day he arrived. 'This is no good to me, Toby,' says he. 'Why not?' I asks. 'Not enough,' says he; 'just enough to unsettle me.' 'What then?' says I. 'Put it on the favourite for the St. Leger,' says he. And he did too, every pinny of it, and the horse was beat on the post by a short head. He dropped the lot in one day. A fact, sir, 'pon me honour! Came to me next day. 'Nothing left!' says ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you do, don't unsettle her temper, for she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald and Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and possibly I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you tolerably comfortable? ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to its own thoughtful people to lack moral steadiness, and they tend to compare it with other ages which look steadier. That is a virtually invariable opinion of such men. The comparison with other ages is generally fallacious, yet the fact is real for each age. Many things tend in this age to unsettle moral solidity. Some of them are peculiar to this time, others are not. But one of the great influences which the Bible is perpetually tending to counteract is stated in best terms in an experience of ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... on, copiously greasing the joint of his inconsistency with words; while the boy listened silently, his eyes fixed on the horse, his mind seething. It was all lost eloquence; no array of words could unsettle a belief of Jean-Marie's; and he drove into Fontainebleau filled with pity, horror, indignation, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Lord Cameron, positively; "it would but unsettle you the more; and now that I come to think of it the more, that face—though I caught but the merest glimpse of its outline—was thinner and older ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... different expressions! Molly is frightened, but evidently braced for action; Mr. Potts is defiant; Lady Stafford is absolutely convulsed with laughter. Already filled with a keen sense of the comicality of the situation, it only wanted her husband's face of indignant surprise to utterly unsettle her. Therefore it is that the one embarrassment she suffers from is a difficulty in refraining from ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... could I in any sense direct others, who had to be guided in so momentous a matter myself? How could I be considered in a position, even to say a word to them, one way or the other? How could I presume to unsettle them as I was unsettled, when I had no means of bringing them out of such unsettlement? And if they were unsettled already, how could I point to them a place of refuge, when I was not sure that I should choose it for myself? My only line, my only duty, was to keep simply to my own ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... a mild-tempered man, so he did not storm and rage, but as the profits of the voyage had been considerable, he resolved to devote them to establishing the claims of the young foundling. He had never told Rolf Morton what those claims were. He knew that they would only tend to unsettle the mind of the boy, and make him less contented with his lot, should he fail to obtain his rights. Rolf had no more notion, therefore, than the world in general, who he was, and he believed the story ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... It would unsettle the rustic mind. They're fearfully particular about that sort of ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Europe—mostly from Italy and the north of Spain—but the great majority are negroes, British subjects from Jamaica and Trinidad. It was foreseen that if negroes from the Southern States were employed, the high wages rates might unsettle the American cotton labor market: so it was decided to recruit from British colonies, and it is not too much to say that, so far as the Canal is hand-made, it is mainly the work of British labor. Several hundreds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... in these strenuous days. We hear of women leaving home, and we hear it with deepest sorrow. Do you know why women leave home? There is a reason. Home is not made sufficiently attractive. Would letting politics enter the home help matters. Ah no! Politics would unsettle our men. Unsettled men mean unsettled bills—unsettled bills mean broken homes—broken vows—and ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... undertake for themselves, on any prevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, any fundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a new government for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, and to unsettle the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... unsettle it. I have a right to choose my own occupation, and I don't intend to become a blacksmith. Even if I did, I should choose some ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... that galley," said Eugene; "the oath she took was not to the man whom the world calls her husband—it was pledged to me. But do not fear that I will lay claim to her, duchess. Far be it from me to take one step that could endanger her safety, or unsettle her convictions. If she considers the oath binding which she took to one man, supposing him to be another, I will bear my fate with resignation; but if she scorns the lie that calls her his wife, she will find means to let me know it; and, let her summons ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... of time. You wouldn't—well, say you couldn't marry me to-morrow. A month hence you would be willing. Because you suffer from a passing illusion, I am to unsettle all my arrangements, and face an intolerable humiliation. The ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... Sidney saw the enthusiasm which agitated every man, woman, and child in the Netherlands against Philip and D'Alva, he told Queen Elizabeth that it was the spirit of God, and that it was invincible. What is the spirit which seems to move and unsettle every other man in England and on the Continent at this time? Upon my conscience, and judging by St. John's rule, I think it is a special spirit of the devil—and a very vulgar ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... mournfully. "No. He says it would unsettle me, and they would be always worrying round, and he wants peace and quietness—but, oh, Miss Patch, they loved me so, it must have nearly broken their hearts! And—and I love them so, I feel sometimes I can't bear it, I can't, I can't. I feel I must run away and ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... as have a great, and false opinion of their own Wisedome, take upon them to reprehend the actions, and call in question the Authority of them that govern, and so to unsettle the Lawes with their publique discourse, as that nothing shall be a Crime, but what their own designes require should be so. It happeneth also to the same men, to be prone to all such Crimes, as consist in Craft, and in deceiving of their Neighbours; ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Bible, or as to the supernatural origin of religion to reach such persons, you run a grave risk that they will reflect the uncertainty on the canons of morality. In taking from them what you believe to be false, inevitably you will unsettle their ideas on moral questions although you might be in full agreement as to these moral questions. Huxley refused to accept the asserted association between morality and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... Borodino was like the roar of the sea: on my battle-field, where drink has been the only slayer, there are many dead; and I can imagine that I hear the full volume of cries from those who are stricken but still living. The vision would unsettle my reason if I had not a trifle of Hope remaining. The philosophic individual who talks in correctly frigid phrases about the evils of the Liquor Trade may keep his reason balanced daintily and his nerve unhurt. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Fairclose. It is so much nobler to work than it is to fritter away a life doing nothing. How tiresome it is," she said, "that you have taken this unfortunate idea in your head of joining a French corps. It will unsettle you altogether." ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... we may observe that the people of Rome in that age were generally more corrupt by many degrees than has been usually supposed possible. The effect of revolutionary times, to relax all modes of moral obligation, and to unsettle the moral sense, has been well and philosophically stated by Mr. Coleridge; but that would hardly account for the utter licentiousness and depravity of Imperial Rome. Looking back to Republican Rome, and considering ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... control. He had been a Democrat. But he had seen the importance of the protective policy to American interests, as would naturally be expected of a descendant of that high protectionist, Thomas Jefferson. He had no sympathies with any measures that would debase or unsettle the currency, and set his face and gave his powerful influence against all forms of fiat or irredeemable paper money, and the kindred folly of the free coinage of silver by this country alone, without the concurrence of the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... opposition and obloquy from the learned conventional pedants of his time. And in the domain of morals the martyrs, reformers, prophets are in like manner 'willing sinners.' They are denounced, persecuted, crucified; for are they not disturbers of society; do they not unsettle young men; do they not come, as Christ came, not to bring peace into the world, but a sword? And thus it is that the willing sinners of one generation are the martyrs and heroes of the next. Through their life and death a richer meaning has been given to the law of beauty or of rectitude, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... and defend ourselves, that we may stand before him and conquer. He is a terrible, mighty foe, says Peter, and is the god of this world. He has more wisdom and more deceptive snares than all men, and can so blind and unsettle reason that it will cheerfully believe ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... was wiser than the fiery captain of the horse. It has been common to censure Hannibal for neglecting to march on Rome after the battle of Cannae. But his dazzling triumph did not for a moment unsettle his clear judgment. He knew that his forces were unequal to the task of storming a walled city garrisoned by a population of fighting men. An attack which he had made on Spoletium had proved the inadequacy of the small Carthaginian ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Clarke told me last night that your daughter was his affianced wife. You can see how helpless I am, even though your daughter in her normal mood begged me to save her from madness. I regard her condition as very critical. To expose her to a public trial of her powers may unsettle ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began to unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever since; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a worthless fellow to love ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... thou ball, roll on! Through seas of inky air Roll on! It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bill is due; It's true my prospects all look blue - But don't let that unsettle you! Never YOU ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... wisest, Deems the best, and so they continue abiding together, He of greatest intelligence ranking no higher than others; All that occurs, as if of itself, going quietly forward. But let disaster unsettle the usual course of existence, Tear down the buildings about us, lay waste the crops and the garden, Banish the husband and wife from their old, familiar-grown dwelling, Drive them to wander abroad through nights and days of ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... beverage. Among his stores was a keg of honey but half exhausted. This he filled up with alcohol, and stirred the fiery and mellifluous ingredients together. The glorious results may readily be imagined; a happy compound of strength and sweetness, enough to soothe the most ruffled temper and unsettle the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... T. P. O'CONNOR is severing his connection with T. P.'s Weekly the name of the paper will not be changed. This sort of thing is well calculated to confuse and unsettle the public. "T. P. or not T. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... indeed, every change of any sort is immoral, as tending to unsettle men's minds, and hence their custom and hence their morals, which are the net residuum of their "mores" or customs. Wherefrom it should follow that there is nothing so absolutely moral as stagnation, except for this that, if perfect, it would ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... last things said by Sir Walter Scott, as he lay dying, was this: "I have been, perhaps, the most voluminous author of my day, and it is a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles, and that I have written nothing which, on my deathbed, I would wish blotted out." To have lived such a life as he lived is more than to have reigned over ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... shall be exerted in restraining this or any other citizen of the State of Maine from adopting proceedings within the British limits (as claimed) calculated to infringe the authority and jurisdiction of this Province and to disturb and unsettle the minds of that portion of its inhabitants residing in the disputed territories until the question in dispute be brought to a final settlement Greely shall immediately ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... glad indeed, Mark; not so much for the sake of the money, but because I was afraid that that confounded treasure was going to unsettle your life. When a man once begins treasure hunting it becomes a sort of craze, and he can no more give it up than an opium smoker can the use of the drug. Thank goodness, that is over; so the capital ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... forgotten this constitutional principle. But the Irish lord-lieutenant is always a party-man, and is always surrounded by party-men. They were Whigs or Tories, Liberals or Conservatives, often extreme in their views and violent in their temper. The vice of the old clan system was its tendency to unsettle, to undo, to upset, to smash and destroy. Instead of counteracting that vice (which still lingers in the national blood), by a fixed, unchanging system of administration, based on principles of unswerving rectitude, which knows no distinction of party, no favouritism, England ruled ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... brain; each thwarts and reproaches the other; and even while their fell rage assails with common hate the peace and virtue of the world, the civil war among their own tumultuous legions defeats the purpose of the foul conspiracy. These are the Furies of the mind, my Lords, that unsettle the understanding; these are the Furies, that destroy the virtue, Prudence,—while the distracted brain and shivered intellect proclaim the tumult that is within, and bear their testimonies, from the mouth of God himself, to the foul ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... not answer for a time. "Not unless I send for you, Wulf. Our meeting has given me much pleasure, and I shall be the happier for it, but for a time our talk of the past and present will unsettle me and stir up afresh regrets and longings. Therefore, it were best that you come not again ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... bear in the mouths of English men and English women. And, as spoken by man to man in England in the nineteenth century, I consider them calculated to prejudice inquirers, to frighten the unlearned, to unsettle consciences, to provoke blasphemy, and to work the loss ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... occasion to observe among ourselves. Christian teachers question the wisdom of bringing young people under free-thinking influence, because, although they do not deny the morals of free-thinkers, they believe that to unsettle the young may have a disastrous effect, not only on belief, but also on conduct. Yet this dangerously unsettling process has been applied by missionaries on a wholesale scale to races which in some respect ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... yourself, this sort of modesty would convict you of cowardice," Dreux exclaimed. "It sounds very funny, coming from you, and I think you are posing. Now with me it is wholly different. I couldn't stand what you have; why, the sight of a dead man would unsettle me for months and, as for risking my life or attempting the life of a fellow creature—well, it would be a physical impossibility. I—I'd just turn tail. You are exceptional, though you may not know it; you're not ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Portuguese or Absolutist party, Pedro went his way, and, even in his latter days of rule, refused to sign Bills for the development of the Constitution. There was undoubtedly much now to unsettle the Brazilian populace. Disadvantageous reciprocity treaties were concluded with various countries, while defeats of the Brazilian soldiers were experienced at the hands of the troops of the Argentine Republic. An indemnity was demanded by France and the United States of America for ships captured ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... my young friend," said he. "There's a new invasion, which we think may unsettle our old ways as much as the invasion of the Crees did those of the Stoneys and Beavers long ago. I mean the invasion of the wagon-trains ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... descried nothing to laugh about. For we always like to see our way; and a sudden change upsets us. And unless it were in the loss of the farm, or the death of the King, or of Betty Muxworthy, there was nothing that could so unsettle our minds as the loss of ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... slowly and casually, and addressing himself strictly to the man, while Trampas, on his side, paid obvious inattention, "this hyeh delay, yu' see, may unsettle our plans some. But it'll be one of two ways,—we're all goin' to Rawhide, or we're all goin' to Billings. We're ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... authority on this point amounts, in my opinion, to an act of tyranny, and it can only tend to promote insincerity, and, perhaps, engender skepticism in its object. Nothing is, indeed, so dangerous as to unsettle the faith of the lower classes, who have neither time nor opportunity of fairly considering ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... cool-headed observer. He had seen so much meek and pure-spirited self-denial; so much high principle in the conduct of Mademoiselle Hennequin, during an intimacy which had now lasted six months, that no passing feeling of doubt, like the one just felt, could unsettle the confidence created by her virtues. I know it may take more credit than belongs to most pocket-handkerchiefs, to maintain the problem of the virtues of a French governess—a class of unfortunate persons that seem doomed ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... he desired nothing Do you know how I picture God? Don't know what to say, for I am always terribly stupid at first Hotel bed: Who has occupied it the night before? Irresistible force of mutual affection Isn't for the fun of it, anyhow! Love must unsettle the mind Machine for bringing children into the world Moments of friendly silence One cannot both be and have been Only by going a long distance from home Sadness of existences that have had their day Well-planned disorder When did you lie, the last ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... pooling is that it invariably leads to periodic wars, which unsettle all business, and but too often introduce into legitimate trade the element of chance. These wars give, moreover, to designing railroad managers an opportunity to enrich themselves by stock speculations at the expense of the stockholders, whose interests they use as a football for the ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... if they don't like it," said Tom, digging his knife savagely into the railing, "they have a chance to kick up their heels and unsettle that heavy party." ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... and if we indulged in them, all our work endeavour and practical activities would have to be dispensed with (vyaghata). Thus such doubts as lead us to the suspension of all work should not disturb or unsettle the notion of vyapti or concomitance at which we had arrived by careful observation and consideration [Footnote ref 2]. The Buddhists and the naiyayikas generally agreed as to the method of forming the notion of concomitance or vyapti (vyaptigraha), but the former tried ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... at the game, whose moves are death, It maketh a man draw too proud a breath: And to see his force taken for reason and right, It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite. Never did chief of the line of Sword Keep his wits whole at that drunken board. He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate, Of the field of his action, for soul as great: He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... to act, if you'll allow me to say so," said Captain John, in his quiet way. "That sort of thing might unsettle her and make her discontented. She steers that little craft over there and is happy now; let her shape her own course, and remember it isn't well to talk to the man ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... that these preparations for the Bishop unsettle my mind from study. Now put on your other coat and hat, and come with me a ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... [such, I suppose, as Rights of Man,] pamphlets which I have not read, and whose purport I know only by report, [he means, perhaps, by the noise they make.] This, however, I am sure, that pamphlets tending to unsettle the public reverence for the constitution, will have very little influence. They can do very little harm—for [by the bye, he is no dealer in political cant] the English are a sober-thinking people, and are more intelligent, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Scott, who had gratefully accepted the dedication, would go down to posterity with the brand of Cain upon his brow. Several even of the higher critics took fright. Jeffrey, while protesting his appreciation of the literary merits of the work, lamented its tendency to unsettle faith. Mr. Campbell talked of its "frightful audacity." Bishop Heber wrote at great length to prove that its spirit was more dangerous than that of Paradise Lost—and succeeded. The Quarterly began to cool towards the author. Moore wrote to him, that Cain was "wonderful, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... she soliloquised; "has awakened to a sense of perception; and all through my fault, for it's that ballad of mine yesterday which has incited this! But the subtle devices in all these rationalistic books have a most easy tendency to unsettle the natural disposition, and if to-morrow he does actually get up, and talk a lot of insane trash, won't his having fostered this idea owe its origin to that ballad of mine; and shan't I have become the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... for a short time. Marion never before in her life received two such letters. Both were anonymous. The first one that she opened aroused enough curiosity to "unsettle" her. She thought she knew whom it was from—those ingenious Boy Scouts of Spring Lake—perhaps it was written by cousin Clifford himself. It was just like him. He was a natural leader among boys, and often up to mischief of some sort. Marion was sure he was one ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... reflection, that it is rather too revolutionary. If canal navigation should be begun in this manner, probably we should soon have the railroad companies running their trains on water by means of sails, and stage lines traveling in the air with balloons. Such things would unsettle the foundations of society and induce anarchy and chaos. A canal that has no water is a licentious and incendiary canal; and it is equally improper and equally repugnant to all conservative persons when, as Mr. Robbins suggests, the boats are floated in tanks and the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... hungered for every scrap of news which was brought to the Palace, Captain Murray hearing nearly everything, and readily responding to the boy's questions, though he always shook his head and protested that it would do harm and unsettle him. ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... and his wife did not know which was their child and loved us both equally, now that they believe that Rupert is their son and that I was a fraud, they will have come to give him all their love, and I am not going to unsettle things again. That is my present idea, and I do not think that I ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... in the field of political satire. It is 1866, and "Petroleum V. Nasby," writing from "Confedrit X Roads," Kentucky, gives Deekin Pogram's views on education. "He didn't bleeve in edjucashun, generally speekin. The common people was better off without it, ez edjucashun hed a tendency to unsettle their minds. He had seen the evil effex ov it in niggers and poor whites. So soon ez a nigger masters the spellin book and gits into noosepapers, he becomes dissatisfied with his condishin, and hankers after a better cabin and more wages. He towunst begins to ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... which, although his Royal Highness and the company did all like of, yet, contrary to my expectation, I find him so jealous now of doing any thing extraordinary, that he desired the gentlemen that they would consider it, and report their minds in it to him. This did unsettle my mind a great while, not expecting this stop: but, however, I shall do as well, I know, though it causes me a little stop. But that that troubles me most is, that while we were thus together with the Duke of York, comes in Mr. Wren from the House; where, he tells ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... causes of the existing distress. The amendment was opposed by Lord Goderich, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Goderich said that the true object of its noble mover was to get rid of the alterations lately introduced into our commercial system, and to unsettle the basis on which the currency now stood. For his own part he had never been able to learn, from the opponents of what was called "Free Trade," what that was which they denounced under that name. The noble mover seemed to menace by it the refusal to foster domestic agriculture by prohibiting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thief, and his appropriation of the fruits of the labor of his slaves, as robbery. We comprehend the motives prompting such utterances. We come not to attend meetings of Ecclesiastical Conventions, representing the republican principles of America, to unsettle the doctrines upon which the throne of your kingdom is based. But we come as cotton planters, to supply your looms with cotton, that British commerce may not be abridged, and England, the great civilizer of the world, may not be forced to slack her pace in the performance ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... be difficult for their sympathisers to swallow, but charity is not broken by plain repudiation of error and its teachers. 'Subverting your souls' is a heavy charge. The word is only here found in the New Testament, and means to unsettle, the image in it being that of packing up baggage for removal. The disavowal of these men is more complete if we follow the Revised Version in reading (ver. 24) 'no commandment' instead of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... number of the birds, the wary and cautious manner of their approach, the nice modulations necessary to "call" them successfully, and the reckless sweep with which they seem to throw aside all fear, and rush into the very jaws of death,—all these combine to unsettle the nerves and aim ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... have gone, for what you call their death is but their birth, with powers transcending those of their former state, as light transcends the darkness. Disturb them not with idle yearnings, lest your thought unsettle the serenity of their lives. Let the ignorance which has ruined me be a warning. Some day I shall complete my term of loneliness, and begin life anew. We will know each other then, dear Paul, as here. Remember, I shall always be your spirit ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... she did not wish to leave me under a wrong impression, and therefore told me that she was not permitted to read any of my letters, or the little books I had sent, as those who watched over her spiritual interests and whom she was bound to obey, thought it wrong to unsettle her mind by reading any thing contrary to the true faith which she held. Here was a pretty exposure of one-sided honesty. I thanked God for the further insight given me into the mystery of iniquity, and from that day devoted all my powers to the investigation of that ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... which your mother gave to my addresses, instead of complying with the terms of a sort of family compact, which absurdly and tyrannically destined her to wed her deformed relative. The shock was even sufficient to unsettle his wits (which, indeed, were never over-well arranged), and I had, as the husband of his nearest kinswoman and heir, the delicate task of taking care of his person and property, until he was reinstated in the management of the latter by those ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... always thought much for others; and now there was the misery of perhaps unsettling others—others who had trusted him with their very souls—others, to whom it was impossible to explain the conflicts which were passing in his own mind. It was so bitter to unsettle their hope and confidence. All through this time, more trying than his own difficulties, were the perplexities and sorrows which he foresaw for those whom he loved. Very illogical and inconsecutive, doubtless; ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... Scarborough into Paris, and they are to spend the winter and spring there, and perhaps go on to Germany in the summer. At first papa was very anxious to take me with them; but Augusta dropped some little hints—it would interrupt my studies, and unsettle me, and so on. You know I am rather proud, Mary, so you can imagine I was not slow to understand her. I said I would much prefer to stay at Thornleigh, and proposed immediately that you should come to me and be my companion, and help ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... Mary's, and I was not confident about my permanent adhesion to the Anglican creed; but I was in no actual perplexity or trouble of mind. Nor did the immense commotion consequent upon the publication of the Tract unsettle me again; for I fancied I had weathered the storm, as far as the Bishops were concerned: the Tract had not been condemned: that was the great point, and I made much ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... waxed so heavy of purse that a woman could come between us,—a selfish woman, I made no doubt, pampered survival of a pernicious and now happily destroyed system, who would not only unsettle my domestic tranquillity, but would, in all likelihood, fetch another alien ferment into our already sorely tried existence as a town needing elevation. It seemed, indeed, that we were never to be ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... am as little disposed to unsettle the reader's faith in the Virgilian tradition, as to part with my own; and I therefore uncandidly hold back the names of the authorities cited. This tradition was in fact the only thing concerning Mantuan history ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... Molly, I was comin' to Rosebud and yourself too; but as you've been so unmannerly, I'll keep these points till another time. By the way, when you write to Rosebud, not a word about all this. It might unsettle the darlin' with her lessons. An' that reminds me that one o' my first businesses will be to have her supplied wi' the best of teachers—French, Italian, Spanish, German masters—Greek an' Hebrew an' Dutch ones too if the dear child wants ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... the way his ears wiggle when he gets excited. Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from the husband having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him." She broke off and scrutinized Sally closely. "Say, what do you ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... tie or tension rods, to take the lateral strain of the arches, and also in trusses to support the beams; but it must be evident that the expansion of the iron from the heat, would render them useless, and under a high temperature, it would be so great as to unsettle the brickwork, and accelerate its fall, on any part of the iron-work giving way: again, the application of cold water to the heated iron, in an endeavour to extinguish the fire, is almost certain to cause one or more fractures. The brick-arching is also very liable to fall, ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood |
