"Demoralised" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then they are attacking not the poet but the social customs of his day. It would be easy if we were to accept 'the general impression of the place,' and go by the tale of gossip, to show that Burns was demoralised by his duties as a gauger, and sank into a state of maudlin intemperance. But ascertained fact and the testimony of unimpeachable authority are at variance with the voice of gossip. 'So much the worse for ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... havildar demoralised. The discomfited chief. Reaches Marenga's town. The earth-sponge. Description of Marenga's town. Rumours of Mazitu. Musa and the Johanna men desert. Reaches Kimsusa's. His delight at seeing the Doctor once more. The fat ram. Kimsusa ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... convention to evacuate the country had been signed, the British garrison, still numbering 4500 soldiers (of whom 690 were Europeans), with some 12,000 followers, marched out of the camp. The winter was severe, the troops demoralised, the march a mass of confusion and massacre, and the force was finally overwhelmed in the Jagdalak pass between Kabul ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of the dandified; on our travels he had worn the casual, unnoticeable dress of the peasant, save when he had masqueraded in the pearl-buttoned velveteens; in London a swaggering air of braggadocio had set off his Bohemian garb: but never had the demoralised disreputability of Paragot struck me until I saw him in ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... under political pressure from Richmond rather than with any hope of advantage on simple military lines, Lee leads his army to an invasion of the North. For this there were at the time several apparent advantages; the army of the Potomac had been twice beaten and, while by no means demoralised, was discouraged and no longer had faith in its commander. There was much inevitable disappointment throughout the North that, so far from making progress in the attempt to restore the authority of the government, the national ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... had all grown out of the supposed miracle of his balloon ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant masses had been so astounded by an event so contrary to all their experience, that their faith in experience was utterly routed and demoralised. It a man and a woman might rise from the earth and disappear into the sky, what else might not happen? If they had been wrong in thinking such a thing impossible, in how much else might they not be mistaken also? The ground was shaken under their ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... fall and begun to listen. It was now, for the first time, that he fully realised the difference between the two Lourdes—old Lourdes so honest and so pious in its tranquil solitude, and new Lourdes corrupted, demoralised by the circulation of so much money, by such a great enforced increase of wealth, by the ever-growing torrent of strangers sweeping through it, by the fatal rotting influence of the conflux of thousands ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... which we describe the coalition had not taken place, and many of the functionaries of the Hudson's Bay Company in Red River, from the Governor downward, seem to have been entirely demoralised, if we are to believe the reports of ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... presented at the present day of "the noblest of all the savage races with whom we have ever been brought in contact, overcome by a worse enemy than sword and bullet, and corrupted into sloth and ruin, ...ruined physically, demoralised in character, by drink." Nobler than other aborigines, who have faded out before the invasion of the white man, as they may be, their savage nobility has not saved them from the common fate; they too have "learned our vices faster than ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... on because 'the run of luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, possibly, be improved by success. Yet the belief in this absurdity is universal, and bids fair to be eternal. 'If I am not in a draught, and my chair is comfortable, you may put me anywhere,' is a remark I have heard but once, and the effect of ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... worked from the plaster cast; and to be there by seven o'clock in the morning required so painful an effort of will, that I glanced in terror down the dim and grey perspective of early risings that awaited me; then, demoralised by the lassitude of Sunday, I told my valet on Monday morning to leave the room, that I would return to the beaux arts no more. I felt humiliated at my own weakness, for much hope had been centred in that academy; and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... had been hardly able to hide. Immune from the sudden and deadly fevers that had swept the camps periodically with fatal results he had worked fearlessly and untiringly among the stricken members of the mission and the fast dwindling army of demoralised porters who had succumbed with alarming rapidity. With the stolid Japanese always beside him he had wrestled entire nights and days to save the expedition from extermination. And in the intervals of nursing, and shepherding the unwilling ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... closely in pursuit. At the rousing, ringing, menacing sound, their hopes had failed—they thought that the rumour of victory was already in the air. "The thunder growl edged with melodious ire in alt," as Carlyle called it, never did better work. It demoralised and brought ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... him out of your hands and reform him myself." Neither do the poor like such unceremonious mercy, such untender tenderness, benevolence at horse-play, mistaking kicks for caresses. They do not like it, they will not respond to it, save in parishes which have been demoralised by officious and indiscriminate benevolence, and where the last remaining virtues of the poor, savage self-help and independence, have been exchanged (as I have too often seen them exchanged) for organised ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... all; they do not dread the lazy life of the prison, but a flogging has great terrors for them, and its moral value is considerable. In bygone years men who were flogged were often worse than before. The flogging had demoralised them. These floggings were, however, shockingly cruel. Nothing is to be admitted but the sharp swishing and this, when properly carried out, is totally ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... to wit, a tall, strong, ornamental creature, whom the women were to cocker up, and pet, and slave for; and be rewarded by basking, dead tired, in an imperial smile or two let fall by their sovereign protege from his arm-chair. And, in fact, good women have often demoralised their idols down to the dirt by this process; to be sure their idols were sorryish ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the city of Soo-chow, of whom Gordon's rival, Burgevine, was one (see page 60). The Khartoum general gained considerably more than the enemy by this bold yet humane stroke of policy, as he got rid of 10,000 traitors, who would have very soon demoralised ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... a tavern, and because he could meet his friends there. Even before that time I have a vague impression of having met him, I forget where, certainly at night; and of having been struck, even then, by a look and manner of pathetic charm, a sort of Keats-like face, the face of a demoralised Keats, and by something curious in the contrast of a manner exquisitely refined, with an appearance generally somewhat dilapidated. That impression was only accentuated later on, when I came to know him, and the manner of his ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... shadow; we stayed a week as it was, living upon fish and cold water. Water, water, was the cry all day long, and really you should have seen me (or you should not have seen me) lying on the sofa, and demoralised out of all sense of female vanity, not to say decency, with dishevelled hair at full length, and 'sans gown, sans stays, sans shoes, sans everything,' except a petticoat and white dressing wrapper. I said something feebly once about the waiter; but I don't think I meant it ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... 'smoking!'" she cried. I could have told her that, if she had asked instead of hitting me. The elder girl, by backing dexterously upon me, knocked my umbrella out of my hand, and when I stooped to pick it up the little boy knocked my hat off. I will confess they demoralised me with their archaic violence. I had some thought of joining in their wild amuck, whooping, kicking out madly, perhaps assaulting a porter,—I think the lady in blue would have been surprised to find what an effective addition to her staff she had picked up,—but ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... at the end of her piece de resistance, a string broke on the piano; but as a correspondent of Schumann's paper wrote, it came "just at the end, like a cry of victory." After this, Wieck wrote to Behrens protesting against his lending a hand to "a demoralised girl without shame." Clara learned that such of her letters as had gone through the Wieck home were opened, and she received an anonymous letter which she knew must have been dictated by her father. Her suspicions were later proved. The worst of the affair ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... of science and knowledge—aye, of national glory, for which so many valiant generations have fought and toiled—the youth of Britain, how are we treating them in the twentieth century of the Christian era? Are they not being exploited? Are they not being demoralised? Are ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... two companies of Jacob's Rifles on the extreme left began to waver. The retirement from the smooth-bore guns demoralised them, and they broke their ranks and fell into utter confusion, breaking in upon the Grenadiers, who had up to that time fought steadily. The Ghazees swept down in great masses, and the Grenadiers likewise ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... explains Malthus's position. To attribute depopulation to luxury was to say that it was caused by the inequality of property. The rich man wasted the substance of the country, became demoralised himself, and both corrupted and plundered his neighbours. The return to a 'state of nature,' in Rousseau's phrase, meant the return to a state of things in which this misappropriation should become ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... the back room above the shop, he saw so little what he could do that, consciously demoralised for the hour, he gave way to tears about it. Her taking a stand so incredibly "low," that was what he couldn't get over. The particular bitterness of his cup was his having let himself in for a struggle ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... the French troops, under Napoleon, from Moscow. Worn out, tired, and dejected, they at length came to a great river over which there was but one bridge for the passage of the vast army. Disorganised and demoralised as that army was, the struggle must certainly have been a terrible one—every one heeding only himself, and crushing through the ranks and treading down his fellows. The writer of the narrative, who was himself one of those who ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of the day was the defeat of General Paris's force at Ardenay by a part of the 3rd German Corps. The latter had a superiority in numbers, but the French in their demoralised condition scarcely put up a fight at all, in such wise that the Germans took about 1000 prisoners. The worst, however, was that, by seizing Ardenay, the enemy drove as it were a wedge between the French forces, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... the nation, this time, had responded wisely. It was certain that it would not always do so well. It had passions; it had prejudices; it was grossly ignorant; it was not disinterested; and it was demoralised by an evil tradition. The French were accustomed to irresponsible power. They were not likely to consent that the power in their hands should be inferior to that which had been exercised over them, or to admit that an entire people is not above the law which ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... wounded men, the only prospect of saving the rest of his army lay in cutting his way homeward through many miles of forest. Mr. Baddeley's description of the retreat is intensely dramatic. After fighting every step of the road the starving and demoralised army was brought to a standstill, and was eventually saved from annihilation by fresh troops that arrived just in time under the Russian commander on the frontier, who had foreseen the emergency, and made forced marches to the rescue of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the increasing misfortunes of the Confederate arms on other theatres of the war gradually cut off the supply of men and means. The Army of Northern Virginia ceased to be recruited, it ceased to be adequately fed. It lived for months on less than one-third rations. It was demoralised, not by the enemy in its front, but by the enemy in Georgia and the Carolinas. It dwindled to 35,000 men, holding a front of thirty-five miles; but over the enemy it still cast the shadow of its great name. Again and again, by a bold offensive, it arrested the Federal ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... which leaves the British authors at the mercy of the Aldens and Monros of the States, is beginning to react on the buyers of goods indelicately obtained. Even newspaper articles are becoming, it is said, a heavy and a weary weight on the demoralised attention, and people are ceasing to read anything but brief and probably personal paragraphs, such as "Joaquin Miller has had ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, ill-dressed, demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered. He seemed in a deep sleep. Wild ducks settled on the lake not far from him with a swish and flutter; a coyote ran past, veering as it saw the recumbent figure; a prairie hen rustled by with a shrill ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... distinguished persons to help me. They influenced the farmers. The sight of a good man is enough. Speech is unnecessary. The villagers were not educated enough to understand moralisings or thinking, but the kind face of a good man has efficacy. There was a man in the village who was demoralised, and when I told of him to a distinguished man who lives near our village he sympathised very much. That distinguished man is eighty-four years old, but he accompanied that demoralised man for three days, giving no instruction but simply living the same life, ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... hospitable and very fond of coursing with dogs. He was over thirty when he inherited from his father a property of two thousand serfs in capital condition; but he had soon dissipated it, and had partly mortgaged his estate, and demoralised his servants. All sorts of people of low position, known and unknown, came crawling like cockroaches from all parts into his spacious, warm, ill-kept halls. All this mass of people ate what they could ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... no apparent fulfilment, but lay to every one's sight, like a feeble writing upon the sands of fantasy, soon effaced by the ever flowing tide of natural law and orderly progression. Now, that this was the case and that yet this body of believers did not diminish but increased, did not become demoralised but grew in moral strength, did not lose faith but continued to cherish a more ardent hope and daily expectation of the Divine appearing, is no doubt due to the working of some law which we do not understand, and which it would therefore be ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... working under the protection of immense shields, supported on posts, they made a ditch around the walls, strengthening it with a palisade. The king constructed also on the east side a fort which he called "Manakhpirri-holds-the-Asiatics." Famine soon told on the demoralised citizens, and their surrender brought about the submission of the entire country. Most of the countries situated between the Jordan and the sea—Shunem, Cana, Kinnereth, Hazor, Bedippa, Laish, Merom, and Acre—besides the cities of the Hauran—Hamath, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... had been advanced and now extended from the River Auja north of Jaffa on the coast, south-east to a few miles north-east of Jerusalem and thence due south. The Turk at this time, although greatly demoralised, was making ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... a spot of rising ground not far from La Haye Sainte, had watched the advance of his Guard. His empire hung on its success. It was the last fling of the dice for him. His cavalry was wrecked, his infantry demoralised, half his artillery dismounted; the Prussian guns were thundering with ever louder roar upon his right. If the Guard succeeded, the electrifying thrill of victory would run through the army, and knit it into energy once more. But if the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... to Lola—"He has demoralised the whole railway system of Europe with his tips. I've seen him give a franc to the black greasy devil that bangs at the carriage wheels with a bit of iron. He ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... could not stop. Demoralised, he darted this way and that; terror winged his feet; the air vibrated above and around him with the dreadful, ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... often during the last week Before the election, and they reached their climax on the evening of the polling day. The two young men, mentally and physically demoralised by fatigue, had at length, at an hour considerably past midnight, escaped from their colleagues, and, having gained the sanctuary of Barty's office, were drearily reviewing the position by the light of a smoky lamp and over the ashes of a dead ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... members at Westminster has demoralised Parliament, therefore we must above all things retain 80 or possibly 103 Irish members at Westminster. He is placed in a hopeless dilemma; he dare not draw the only conclusion to which his argument ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... might have already ducked below it from the rear, and be drawing a bead upon him at that moment from the low-browed crypt, the receptacle of empty bottles and broken crockery. No, there was nothing to be done but to bring away (if it were still possible) his shattered and demoralised forces. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... himself to be crushed. To the last they counted among the most active, the least demoralised of the battalion; their vigorous vitality invested them both with the appearance of an heroic pair in the eyes of their comrades. And they never exchanged more than a casual word or two, except one day when, skirmishing in front of the battalion against a worrying ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... the fate of Corsica was struck at the battle of Ponte Nuovo, of which some particulars are given in a former chapter.[24] This defeat entirely demoralised the island militia, and crushed Paoli's hopes of maintaining the nationality of Corsica. Retiring to Corte, and thence, almost as a fugitive, to Vivario, in the heart of the mountains, though he might still have maintained a guerilla warfare against the French, he resolved to abandon a forlorn ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... stream, had its stories. Kut was to be occupied by us on the following Sunday. General X had stated it quite decisively, with an elegant gesture of confidence. General Y had sworn it, banging the table. General Z had mentioned it casually, a cigar between his teeth. The Turks were hopelessly demoralised. They had no ammunition, no food, and no heart. Hopes ran high, and everyone who came up from Ashar was eagerly questioned. We woke one morning to hear a great noise of steam sirens from the river, and for a time lay in ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... were coming down on us, and our little group was obliged to retreat. 'What had happened to our division of the left wing had taken place all along the line. The movement of the hostile cavalry, which inundated the whole plain, had demoralised our soldiers, who seeing all regular retreat of the army cut off, strove each man to effect one for himself. At each instant the road became more encumbered. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery, were pressing along pell-mell: jammed together like a solid mass. ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Jonah's happiness to see the looks of evident disgust with which the first class greeted his reappearance in the schoolroom. Their pleasant experience yesterday had demoralised them, and they settled down listlessly at Jonah's bidding like voyagers who, after a day in still waters, put out once more to the rough sea. Teddy especially felt the hardships of the mighty deep. Jonah's eye transfixed ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... about a fortnight before Ellen's death, to consult Mr. Fordyce on its disposal, declaring the great difficulties and deficiencies of the place, which made it impossible to offer it to any one without considerable private means, and also able to attract and improve the utterly demoralised population. He ended, almost in joke, by saying, 'In fact, I know no one who could cope with the situation but yourself; I wish you could find me your own counterpart, or come yourself in earnest. It is just the air that suits my sister— bracing sea-breezes; the parsonage, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the slips that never came. Her account of the mystery didn't suffice: her recall of her birth in Florence and Florentine childhood; her parents, from the great country, but themselves already of a corrupt generation, demoralised, falsified, polyglot well before her, with the Tuscan balia who was her first remembrance; the servants of the villa, the dear contadini of the poder, the little girls and the other peasants of the next podere, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... Popes, were in any measure guided and controlled by such a woman. Alone, and aided by nothing but a reputation for sanctity, she dared to tell the greatest men in Europe of their faults; she wrote in words of well-assured command, and they, demoralised, worldly, sceptical, or indifferent as they might be, were yet so bound by superstition that they could not treat with scorn the voice ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... fought out of sight of sky or sun under the electric glare, fought out in a vast confusion by multitudes untrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by mindless labour and enervated by the tradition of two hundred years of servile security against multitudes demoralised by lives of venial privilege and sensual indulgence. They had no artillery, no differentiation into this force or that; the only weapon on either side was the little green metal carbine, whose secret manufacture and sudden distribution in enormous ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... was amazed at Mr. Fearing, for that hare-hearted pilgrim would be doing things in the house that he himself would scarcely do who had been in the house a thousand times. It was Gaius's exuberant heartiness that had demoralised Mr. Fearing and made him almost too forward even for a wayside inn. In little things also Gaius, mine host, showed his sensitive and solicitous hospitality. We all know housekeepers, not to say innkeepers, and not otherwise ungenerous housekeepers either who will grudge ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... Edward, Duke of Kent; appointed Governor of Gibraltar, 1802. In order to establish strict discipline in the garrison, which he found in a very demoralised state, he issued a general order forbidding any private soldiers to enter the wine shops, half of which he closed at a personal sacrifice of L4,000 a year in licensing fees. In consequence, a mutiny broke out on Christmas Eve, 1802. ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... had now developed into a galloping pursuit. Turks were demoralised, and after them went the Australians like whippets on the course. There was no regular line. Little units were here and there. It was the day for the born leader. Having no precise information as to where the pursuit should end and a defensive line made, many pushed right on ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... feeble show of resistance, but the thumbscrews were instantly applied, and Ernest, demoralised as he already was, recanted and submitted himself to the powers that were. He told only a little less than he knew or thought he knew. He was examined, re-examined, cross-examined, sent to the retirement of his own bedroom and cross-examined ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... that thereupon swept the beach, the invaders did indeed waver for a moment—so closely it resembled the real thing. As the smoke lifted, however, by the murky glare of the torches they were seen to be less demoralised than infuriated. And now, upon the volley's echo, a drum banged thrice, and from a boat just beyond the water's edge the Troy bandsmen crashed ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... too, was distinctly demoralised: his cook was an artist, unrivalled at soups and entrees; but he had to get ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... all along the road we fell in with groups of burghers. There was no question that our ranks were demoralised and heartsick. Commandant-General Joubert had made Dannhauser Station his headquarters and thither we wended our way. But though we approached our general with hearts weighed down with sorrow, so strange and complex a character is the Boers', that by the time we reached him we had gathered together ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... continue his retreat to the mountains which form the barrier between Syria and Cilicia. Here, at the pass of Beilan, he was attacked by Ibrahim, outmanoeuvred, and forced to retreat with heavy loss (July 29). The pursuit was continued through the province of Cilicia. Hussein's army, now completely demoralised, made its escape to the centre of Asia Minor; the Egyptian, after advancing as far as Mount Taurus and occupying the passes in this range, took up his quarters in the conquered country in order to refresh his ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... For he must be born again many times, and must torture his body until it shrivels up, is freed from sin, and is without desires. Then the soul is released and is not born again, for Nirvana, the last goal, is reached. Only bad men continue to live. The nations of India had been demoralised by that doctrine for centuries. But it did not satisfy wise men. Balthasar thought: If a man starves through a few dozen lives, then something good must come out of it. Or is evil good enough to continue, and good evil enough to cease? Balthasar sought better counsel. He sought throughout ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... gun loose in a heavy sea-way. He slapped old friends on the back and asked them if the stumps were coming away easily; he talked nonsense concerning labour and the inalienable rights of elephants to a long 'nooning'; and wandering to and fro, thoroughly demoralised the garden until sundown, when he returned ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... time a consummate moral philosopher. His aethetic sensibility was indeed so great that it led him, perhaps, into a relative error, in that he overestimated the influence which art can have on character and affairs. Homer's stories about the gods can hardly have demoralised the youths who recited them. No religion has ever given a picture of deity which men could have imitated without the grossest immorality. Yet these shocking representations have not had a bad effect on believers. The deity was opposed to their own vices; those it might itself be ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... can't think how pleased I am to find myself in Florence again in our own house, everything looking exactly as if we had left it yesterday. Scarcely I can believe that we have gone away at all. But Robert has been perfectly demoralised by Paris, and thinks it all as dull as possible after the boulevards: 'no life, no variety.' Oh, of course it is very dead in comparison! but it's a beautiful death, and what with the lovely climate, and the lovely associations, and the sense of repose, I could ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... as it was by the loss of a brilliant chance, and demoralised as it became under the fatigues and hardships of a most harassing retreat, never failed to repel attacks on its rear, where Paget handled the cavalry of the rear-guard with signal ability, especially in a spirited action near Benevente. In spite of some excesses, tolerable order was maintained ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... first three weeks of the siege, the garrison "had many prosperous chances." Meanwhile Knox prophesied the defeat of his associates, because of "their corrupt life." They had robbed and ravished, and were probably demoralised by Knox's prophecies. On the last day of July the castle surrendered. {24} Knox adds that his friends would deal with France alone, as "Scottish men had ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... himself with the small bodyguard he had organised of 150 picked Soudanese. With these he entered Fascher, where there were 3000 troops, and the Pasha, Hassan Helmi, had 10,000 more at Kolkol, three days' journey away. Gordon found the garrison quite demoralised, and afraid to move outside the walls. He at once ordered Hassan Pasha to come to him, with the intention of punishing him by dismissal for his negligence and cowardice in commanding a force that, properly ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... saying is "Al-nr wa l l- r" (Hell-)fire, but not shame. The sentiment is noble. Hasan the Prophet's grandson, a poor creature demoralised by over- marrying, chose the converse, "Shame is better than Hell-fire." An old ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... them to her—as to which he consciously did himself injustice, knowing that if he had them he would certainly put them at her disposal. He accused himself, at bottom and not unveraciously, of a fantastic, a demoralised sympathy with her. If misery made strange bedfellows it also made strange sympathies. It was moreover a part of the abasement of living with such people that one had to make vulgar retorts, quite out of one's own tradition of good manners. "Morgan, Morgan, to what pass have I come for you?" ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... suspicion. That cursed stupid game of his with the telephone at the Headquarters of the Baraland Rides might cost him more than the bit of twist with which he had bribed the orderly, left for a moment in sole charge, and demoralised ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... they were by no means demoralised. On all parts of the front our advance was stubbornly resisted. On our left flank they fought with most bitter determination to save their railhead for long enough to get their guns and stores away, and having succeeded in doing this retired farther up the coast and prepared to fight ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... very uncommon in the towns of our North American colonies. But too often, murky-looking wharfs, storehouses, and half-dismantled ships, are enveloped in drizzling fog—the fog rendered yet more impenetrable by the fumes of coal-tar and sawdust; and the lower streets swarm with a demoralised population. Yet the people of St. John are so far beyond the people of Halifax, that I heartily wish them ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... and deserted; this town, waiting for a kindly fire with a favouring breeze to wipe out its useless emptiness; a few half-breed children at mission schools; a hardy native tribe, sophisticated, diseased, demoralised, and largely dead—that ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... her own bed thoroughly demoralised. And sleep being pretty well banished by that time, she sat up in bed and thought things over. Before this she had not thought much, only raged and sulked alternately. But now she thought. She thought about the man in the room ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on up a steep grass-covered slope, and finally reach the top of the wall. The immense old crater floor before us is to-day the site of a seething storm, and the peak itself quite invisible. My boys are quite demoralised by the cold. I find most of them have sold the blankets I gave them out at Buana; and those who have not sold them have left them behind at Buea, from laziness perhaps, but more possibly from a confidence in their powers to prevent us ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... an Englishman, Bimba improves the occasion to air all the Anglo-Saxon in his vocabulary for the edification of his friends, who marvel much at Bimba's fluency in a foreign tongue. But whether it is that my residence among Spanish-speaking people has demoralised my native lingo, or whether it is that Bimba's English has grown rusty—it is evident that at least three-fourths of his rapidly spoken words are as incomprehensible to me as they are to the ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... presence of so many unruly elements at this distant outpost frequently threw the whole settlement into a sad state of confusion and excitement, which the priests were at times entirely unable to restrain. Indians, soldiers, and traders became at last so demoralised, that one of the priests wrote, in his despair, that there seemed no course open except "deserting the missions and giving them up to the brandy-sellers as a domain ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... themselves for their dreadful task by secretly acquiring the competent knowledge, so that they might not find it necessary to take the aid of confederates. They generally did their work alone, or at most two would act together. It certainly argues a sadly demoralised state of society in the reign of King James, that so many persons should be found who would coolly connect themselves with the work of death; but still there was not so much real danger as in the quiet, systematic poisonings of such criminals as Tophana ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... Royal voluptuary generally remains young to the last. No one ever tires of pleasure. It is the pursuit of pleasure, the trouble to grasp it, that makes us old. Only the soldiers who enter Capua with wounded feet leave it demoralised. And yet George, who never had to wait or fight for a pleasure, fell enervate long before his death. I can but attribute this to the constant persecution to which he was subjected by duns and ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... the man, shrugging his shoulders, "we were in rags. The commissariat was demoralised, and supplies were not forthcoming. We had to take what we could find, or else ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... We are coming!" came in Mr. Radbury's well-known voice, and never had it sounded more comforting to the two boys than at that moment. Then followed more shots, some striking the cabin and others hitting the Indians, who were so demoralised that for the moment they knew not what ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... to them to ask whether their conduct in any juncture might meet with approval; being a law to other people, they were naturally a law to themselves, and an Irish law. Their power was excessive, and demoralised them by its lack of limitation; yet many of the qualities which it bred, made them an element of great value in the country. These qualities are by no means extinct in their kindred, nor is the tradition of ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... humbled and forgiven, indeed, but not in a happy state of mind. He came back to a ruined kingdom; to a sinful and demoralised and destitute people; to see everywhere the sorrow, and the evil and the misery and shame which his doings had caused; to be reminded continually that his life had been a great wicked and foolish blunder, and that there was no undoing the mischief which he had done. For the sake of his ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... at the paper-board,' when I first went to Girton, how all you girls wore your hair quite straight, in neat smooth coils, plaited up at the back about the size of a pancake; and how of a sudden I burst in upon you, like a tropical hurricane, and demoralised you; and how, after three days of me, some of the dear innocents began with awe to cut themselves artless fringes, while others went out in fear and trembling and surreptitiously purchased a pair of curling-tongs? I ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... seem to sound the knell of possible employment of cavalry in battle. No matter how dislocated are the infantry ridden at so long as they are not quite demoralised, however ruse the cavalry leader—however favourable to sudden unexpected onslaught is the ground, the quick-firing arms of the future must apparently stall off the most enterprising horsemen. Probably if the writer were arguing the point with a German, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... campaign, and on October 22 wrote resigning his command. He allowed the discipline of his army to become lax. The winter was spent in idleness and dissipation. A bank at faro was opened, and many officers were ruined by gambling. All ranks were demoralised, and sober townspeople who had welcomed the arrival of the troops were disgusted by their disorderly behaviour. The only fruit of Howe's victories during the campaign of 1777 was the acquisition of good winter quarters at Philadelphia, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... him in the South of England. In the North he is a man of altogether higher education and breeding: but he is, even in the South, a much better man than it is the fashion to believe him. No doubt, he has given heavy cause of complaint. He was demoralised, as surely, if not as deeply, as his own labourers, by the old Poor Law. He was bewildered—to use the mildest term—by promises of Protection from men who knew better. But his worst fault after all has been, that young or old, he has copied his landlord too closely, and acted ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... crowd in the road, hoarse with laughter, had exhausted all their adjectives and were repeating themselves. The Ripton score was six goals, a penalty goal, and two tries to nil, and the Wrykyn team was a demoralised rabble. ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... efficient fellow. He lacked the dash of Andreas, but he was as true as steel. In the attack on Ali Musjid, in the throat of the Khyber Pass, the native groom, who was leading my horse behind me, became demoralised by the rather heavy fire of big cannon balls from the fort, and skulked to the rear with the horse. John had no call to come under fire, since the groom was specially paid for doing so; but abusing the latter for a coward in the expressive vernacular of India, he laid hold of the reins, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Directly, in that demoralised crowd, trouble broke out. Two men who had no business there had jumped into the boat under the pretence of unhooking the tackles, while some sort of squabble arose on the deck amongst these weak, tottering spectres of a ship's company. The captain, who had been for days living secluded ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... "Let not your hearts be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me;" "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Even the hardened among the wretched and demoralised sufferers there could not choose but hear and note the powerful contrast between the gentle voice of Almighty God that thus murmured within the prison, and the crashing voice of puny ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... from his owner and his strange surroundings might have brought about in any case. The whole thing was natural enough without assuming disaster, especially as seen by the light of that cut in the strap. The dog was a town-bred dog, and once out of his master's sight, might get demoralised and all astray. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... winter, I returned to the same inn for a few days, and found it somewhat demoralised. There had been grand doings of some sort, and, though the doings were over, the moral and material debris were not yet quite removed. The famiglia Bonvicino was gone, and so was Cricco. The cook, the new waiter, and the landlord (who sings a good comic song upon occasion) had all drunk as much wine ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... DARE tell him now," continued Zoie, elated by the demoralised state to which she was fast reducing him. "For Heaven's sake, don't make it any worse," she concluded; "it's bad ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... should not do so without a fight. He was most cruelly punished for his temerity. Marshal Lannes, making use of the heights, at the foot of which Prince Louis had imprudently deployed his troops, first raked them with grape-shot from his artillery, and when this had demoralised them, he advanced several masses of infantry, which descending rapidly from the high ground, swept like a torrent onto the Prussian battalions and instantly overwhelmed them! Prince Louis, aghast, and probably aware of his mistake, hoped ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... said that there was no use in getting Sloper to put on the blue-ribbon, that he was an utterly demoralised man, that he had no strength of character, that no power on earth could save him! They were right. No power on earth could save him—or them! These people forgot that it is not the righteous but sinners who ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Fullerton got into the howdah, and fired two shots into the spot where the tigress was lying. He did not apparently wound her, but the reports brought her to the charge once more, and the elephant, by this time fairly tired of the game, and thoroughly demoralised with fear, bolted right away, and nearly cracked poor Fullerton's head against the branch ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the parish, and this was completely disorganised and demoralised. The old law of settlement made it practically impossible for labour to find the best market. Even if a young man had an offer of a situation in another part of the country at double wages he would often refuse to go lest he should "lose his parish," or it might ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... observe that the Jew was unsocial, narrow in his prejudices and obstinate in his superstitions, while the Greek was as devoid of principle as he was brilliantly versatile. The Jew and Greek whom he saw were those of a demoralised period; but in any case the Roman did not understand either; he did not know that each was the representative of a certain important set of principles carried to excess. He would hardly have thought it worth his while to reflect on such a matter. It is otherwise with ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... same way guarding the different exits to the town. The officer in command of this regiment saluted Ignosi as king, and informed him that Twala's army had taken refuge in the town, whither Twala himself had also escaped, but he thought that they were thoroughly demoralised, and would surrender. Thereupon Ignosi, after taking counsel with us, sent forward heralds to each gate ordering the defenders to open, and promising on his royal word life and forgiveness to every soldier who laid down his arms, but saying that ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... to love Nature, which has either no response to give, or answers in irony. Let us even avoid, as much as we can, deep concentration of thought upon the mysteries of Nature, lest we become demoralised by contemplating her negligence, her blindness, her implacability. We find here a violent reaction against the poetry of egotistic optimism which had ruled the romantic school in England for more than a hundred years, and we recognise a branch of Mr. Hardy's ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... received the first instalment of my Christmas fare, in the shape of three-quarters of a pint of tea and eight ounces of dry bread. Whether the price of groceries was affected by the Christmas demand, or whether the kitchen was demoralised by the holiday, I am unable to decide; but I noticed that the decoction was more innocuous than usual, although I had thought its customary strength could not be weakened without a miracle. My breakfast being devised on the plainest vegetarian ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... should have provided her with what I had really considered a very necessary attendant, made her furious. This person, whom Mme. Herold had recommended to me with the assurance that she had shown angelic patience in the care of her sick and aged mother, speedily became so demoralised by Minna's treatment of her that, at the end of a very short time, I of my own accord hurriedly dismissed her, and in doing so was violently reproached by my wife for giving the woman a small tip. To ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... self-idealised personality, merely confirm the words of all contemporary writers. Now, if there was a country where an intrigue between a woman noted for her virtue and a poet noted for his eccentricity would, had it existed, have been joyfully laid hold of by gossip, it was certainly this utterly-demoralised Italy of cavalieri serventi: every fashionable woman and every fast man would have felt a personal satisfaction in tearing to pieces the reputation of a lady whose whole character and life had been a censure upon theirs. ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... locomotion urged these individuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and then, and at once exclamations of anger burst forth behind him. Then he lashed his perspiring jades afresh, but indifferent to their jolting, running up against things here and there, not caring if he did, demoralised, and almost weeping with thirst, fatigue, ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... him?" Denys did shoot him; every day of his life; other arbalestriers shot him; archers shot him. Everybody shot him. He was there to be shot, apparently. But the abomination was, he did not mind being shot. Nay, worse, he got at last so demoralised as not to seem to know when he was shot. He walked his battlements under fire, as some stout skipper paces his deck in a suit of Flushing, calmly oblivious of the April drops that fall on his woollen armour. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... trembling peasants, and witnessed the cruel, degrading corporal punishments he inflicted upon them, while his eyes were speedily opened to his father's addiction to drinking, gambling, and debauchery. These experiences would most certainly have demoralised and depraved his childish mind had it not been for the powerful influence the refined and cultured mother had from the first exercised upon her son. The contrast between his parents was so startling ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... Roman power began to decay, the outlying possessions were the first to be given up. The Romans had enslaved and demoralised the provincial population; and when they were gone, the great farms tilled by slave labour under the direction of Roman mortgagee-proprietors lay open to the attacks of fresh and warlike barbarians from beyond the sea. How early the fertile ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... 'Varsity captain has seen the screw work and resolves to try it again. Once more he move Shock to the wing, signals to the quarters, and again the Montreal stone wall is demoralised. But instead of Campbell boring over the prostrate form of his big centre with the ball the McGill captain, securing it, passes to Carroll, his quarter, who dashing off as a feint to the right, passes far across the field to Bunch on ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... conspicuous gallantry," it ran, "under very heavy shell fire on August 26th, 1916. Seeing that his men were becoming demoralised by the bombardment, Captain Dymond, on his own initiative, led a surprise attack against the enemy trenches. He found the Germans unprepared, and at the head of his men captured two lines of trenches along a front of two hundred and fifty yards. Captain ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... not, that is for you to decide. There is much to be said against novel reading and writing. I think it was De Quincey who said that novels are the opium of the West; and I have myself observed that novel-reading is one of those bad habits that grow upon people until they are enslaved by it, demoralised by it; and if that is the case with the reader, what ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Damer, shrugging her shoulders and shivering. "One feels so demoralised at this end of the night. Nap, I wish you would find my husband. I've said good-night to everybody, and I want to go ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... nor family were safe. Mothers cursed their fruitfulness, and women their beauty. Fear soon engenders corruption, and subjects are speedily tainted by the depravity of their masters. Ali, considering a demoralised race as easier to govern, looked on ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... superiority over another. The typical patriot, Henry V., once makes the common boast that one Englishman is equal to three Frenchmen, but he apologises for the brag as soon as it is out of his mouth. (He fears the air of France has demoralised him.) ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee |
