"Ruin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there was no alternative. Instant exposure and ruin stared me in the face: I had no choice but to yield in my own defense. In plainer words still, it was no accidental resemblance that startled me at the theater last night. The chorus-singer at the opera was ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... 'That won't ruin you, because they are insured, and let us hope it won't come to that. Besides, the mills are so well guarded that they can't get near them,' said Mr Howroyd in a tone which showed that he had thought of this ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... honourable peace for everybody, could have come much sooner than it did. A significant fact worth remembering—that the Boers did not attempt to destroy the mines on the Rand—goes far to prove that they were not at all so determined to hurt British property, or to ruin British residents, or to destroy the large shareholder concerns to which the Transvaal owed its celebrity, as was ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... been to make Boobyalla the centre of attraction for thirty miles round throughout the merry Yuletide, and for nearly two weeks Donald had gone about with an air of lively trepidation, due to an idea that he was being brought precipitately to ruin by all this wasteful and ridiculous excess. When Mrs. Macdougal's guests came upon her lord and master laboriously casting up sums with a stab of carpenter's pencil on bits of waste-paper, or smooth ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... a very grand castle in its day, and the half- ruined walls of the old stronghold still rose majestically from the summit of the crag. Indeed the ruin was more apparent than real as yet, and a few thousands judiciously expended upon the masonry would have sufficed to restore the buildings to their original completeness. Many a newly enriched merchant or banker would have paid a handsome price for the place, though the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... the dismal effects of the late hurricane (never to be forgotten) caution you never to plant them too near the mansion, (or indeed any other house) that so if such accident happen, their fall and ruin ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Goswell Street—Pickwick, who has choked up the well and thrown ashes on the sward—Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans—Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen—heavy damages—is the only punishment with which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... some banks, that appear solid and substantial from the outside, may be on the verge of ruin, owing to the lack of supervision over income and expenditure; so many apparently robust bodies may be on the verge of physical collapse, owing to the mistaken belief that the body is simply a depository for food. Energy may be stored up in the system for future ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... everywhere When night and man combine for darksome deeds. I'll go to him, and argue on my knees— Yea, yield my hand—would I could give my heart! To stay his purpose and this act of ruin. ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... attend upon him in the autumn, mainly for the purpose of copying voluminous private correspondence about a sugar estate he owned at Singapore, then producing a large income, but the subsequent failure of which was his ruin. One year Sir Alexander Cockburn, the Lord Chief Justice, came to stay with him; and excellent company he was. Horsman had sometimes rather an affected way of talking; and referring to some piece of political news, asked Cockburn whether he had seen it in the ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the chief object of curiosity in Linlithgow, is a majestic ruin, situated on the margin of a beautiful lake, and covering more than an acre. It is entered by a detached archway, on which were formerly sculptured the four orders borne by James V., the Thistle, Garter, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... is a fact that to introduce anything new into an apartment hallowed by many home associations, where all things have grown old together, requires as much care and adroitness as for an architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine old ruin. The fault of our carpet was that it was in another style from everything in our room, and made everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors, material, and air belonged to another manner of life, and were a constant plea for alterations; and you see it actually ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... our ruin dated from that letter. Philip sent for me to the Escurial. He wished to know more precisely what the accusations were. I told him, denying them. Then he desired of the Princess proof of what she alleged against Vasquez, and she had ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... here of the German lines and ours! As it gets darker, the flashes of the guns and the Very lights' solemn brilliance illuminate the whole show like a map. That tragic ruin of a town on our left is being shelled as usual. Jim is there. In front of us the German salient. All comparatively quiet. How lovely it is! The sounds of our men digging in the wet soil mingle now with other small noises. Voices underground. Listen. And a mouth-organ's ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... encamped in a far distant forest, and Evangeline took leave of her friends at the Mission and set forth again to seek her lover, but when she reached the hunter's lodge she found it deserted and fallen to ruin. ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... seconded, must breed A kind of duty in him, and regard: Whereas, if I should intimate the least, It would but add contempt to his neglect, Heap worse on ill, make up a pile of hatred, That in the rearing would come tottering down, And in the ruin bury all our love. Nay, more than this, brother; if I should speak, He would be ready, from his heat of humour, And overflowing of the vapour in him, To blow the ears of his familiars With the false breath of telling what disgraces, And low ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... an opportunity to ruin a rival, with whom he is at enmity, without public dishonor, and yet generously forbears, nay, converts the opportunity into a disinterested benefit, evinces a noble instance of virtuous magnanimity. He conquers his own enmity, the most glorious ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... I am lost; I shall have no resource left but to blow out my brains if you do not help me. A speculation which held out every hope of success has turned the wrong way, and I owe eighty-five thousand francs. It means dishonor, ruin, the destruction of all my future if I do not pay, and, I say again, rather than survive the disgrace, I will blow my brains out. I should, perhaps, have done so already, had it not been for the brave and hopeful words of a woman, whose name I never mention ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... principles;—exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live shameless, in the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify,—a sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;—rob her of her best dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishonour;—but involve a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you will think conscience must lead such a man a troublesome ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... exaltation and ruin was that he left Vermont, a man who will do that of his own accord is sure to run wild. Well, he left his native State, and set up at the Hub of the Universe, which every one knows is Boston, where he began his education as a financier and ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... continued Mr. Franklin. "I mean to say, it is so important for the young to form industrious habits, that they had better work for nothing than to be idle. If they are idle when they are young, they will be so when they become men, and idleness will finally be their ruin. 'The devil tempts all other men, but idle men tempt the devil,' is an old and truthful proverb, and I hope you will never consent ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... look on fertile France, And see the cities and the towns defaced By wasting ruin of the cruel foe! As looks the mother on her lowly babe, When death doth close his tender dying eyes, See, see, the pining malady of France; Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds, Which thou thyself hast given her woful breast! O turn thy edged sword another way; Strike ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Beelzebub, the Captain of this Fiend, Design'd my ruin; therefore to this end He sent him harnest out: and he with rage That hellish was, did fiercely me ingage: But blessed Michael helped me, and I By dint of Sword did quickly make him fly. Therefore to him let me give lasting praise, And thank and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... interest in whatever related to his ancestors. The ladies had dipped deeply into the fashionable reading of the present day. Lady Ratcliff and her fair daughters had climbed every pass, viewed every pine-shrouded ruin, heard every groan, and lifted every trap-door, in company with the noted heroine of "Udolpho." They had been heard, however, to observe that the famous incident of the Black Veil singularly resembled the ancient ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of the spirit having become enfeebled or obscured, the people are left in darkness and given over to sin and wickedness. Moral ruin seems inevitable unless there is a divine influx, a new Avatar, or Buddha, or Advent ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... a shame to eat this way—ruin our dinners!" said Mrs. Moran, suddenly entering the conversation. "Stop flirting with Greg, Rachael, and give me some more tea. One lump, and only about half a cup, dear. Tell me a good way to get thin, Greg! Agnes Chase says her doctor has a diet—you eat all you want, and you ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... earl of Chatham) won great popularity by its condemnation of political "graft." Pitt's fiery demands for war first against Spain (1739-1748) and then against France (1756-1763) were echoed by patriotic squires and by the merchants who wished to ruin French commerce and to throw off the restrictions laid by Spain on American commerce. Pitt had his way until George III, a monarch determined to destroy the power of the Whigs, appointed Tory ministers, such as Lord Bute ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... I've done it. I couldn't stand her follerin' me about, an' sayin' 'ow they did things in Hingland, while her red-faced girl was a-spendin' the days on the airy steps, a-lookin' through the railin's. 'Now, Mrs. Bowlin',' says I, 'it'll just be the ruin of you an' the death of me if you keep on makin' a picter of yourself like that lonely Indian a-sittin' on a pinnacle in the jographys, watchin' the inroads of civilization, with a locomotive an' a cog-wheel in front, an' the buffalo an' the grisly ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... thing to extract a promise from The Woman that she will turn to you for help if ever your help should be needed (knowing that there could be no greater joy than to serve her at any cost whatsoever, though it led to death or ruin), but it is quite another thing when that help is invited for the benefit of the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... were gigantic speculations, like that of John Law and the East India Company, with the helpless ruin of its collapse. The time was ripe for the formulation of some system of economic laws; and two men who had long pondered them, De Gournay and Quesnay, made the first attempt to explain the meaning of wealth and its distribution. After Quesnay and his system, still ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... nods, but Furneaux had erred three times in as many seconds. He had switched on the light prematurely, and his ready banter had warned the parricide that a well-built scheme was crumbling to irretrievable ruin. Moreover, he had underrated the nervous forces of the man thus trapped and outwitted. Fenley knew that when his feet touched the earth he would begin a ghastly pilgrimage to the scaffold. Two yellow orbs of light were already springing up the slight ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... "Dar ain't no cave! none't I knows about—dat's shore!" This was of course a downright lie; but it was told to save from ruin those he loved; and I do not think it stands charged against his soul on the ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... melted with heat; the seasons seemed playing one grand masquerade; the longest day and the shortest day, and no day at all, succeeded one another in rapid succession, and the whole universe seemed threatened with ruin and desolation. Now, he thought, was the time to put an end to all this strange disorder, and avow himself the great agent in all these marvels! But he found, to his chagrin, that, so far from having convinced men of the being and attributes ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... openly now. You've heard, haven't you, about the Cunard Line and Queenstown?..." It appeared that the Cunard Line had abandoned Queenstown as a port of call for American liners.... That means absolute ruin for Queenstown!... Casement tried to get the Hamburg-Amerika line to send their boats instead, and they'd agreed to do so ... all the preparations were made to welcome the first of their boats ... and then the scheme was abandoned by the Germans. The English Foreign office got ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... precious only son, who had died a few years before—the beautiful memorial room, filled with pictures he had loved, beautiful vases, where flowers always bloomed; and a thousand tokens of the loved and lost, had shared the universal ruin. So had the writings and the clothing of the lamented father, Isaac T. Hopper—of all these priceless mementoes, there remained only the marble, life-size, bust of the son, which Mr. Gibbons had providentially removed to a place ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... regard for him, because I thought he was tenderly attached to my son, and only desired to promote his advantage; but when I found that he was a treacherous person, who thought only of his own interest, and that, instead of carefully trying to preserve my son's honour, he plunged him into ruin by permitting him to give himself up to debauchery without seeming to perceive it, then my esteem for this artful priest was changed into disgust. I know, from my son himself, that the Abbe, having one day met him in the street, just as he was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... different manner, I shall dishonour a person who has passionately loved me, and is one of the most deserving women in the world; on the other side, I shall draw upon myself an implacable hatred that will ruin my fortune, and perhaps proceed somewhat further." "I do not comprehend what you say," replied the Duke de Nemours, "but I begin to see that the reports we have had of your interest in a great Princess are not wholly without ground." "They are not," ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... men such a reverse would have been utter ruin of soul and body. An ordinary man, finding all the hopes of his future, all the expectations, which had been a part of his very life, taken suddenly from him, would have abandoned himself to a career of vice; he would have become a blackleg, a swindler, a drunkard, a beggar ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the final exposition, years of utter ruin to my prospects and my hopes. Wentworth might be married by that time, or indifferent, or dead; Ernie too old to make the matter of a year or two of consequence in the carrying out of the nefarious scheme to sustain which it would be so easy to ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Morrison in his turn gave an exclamation which seemed the vent of long-stored exasperation, and said with heat: "Look here, Page, you're getting to be a perfect monomaniac on the subject! What earthly good does it do your man with a pick to ruin a fine moment by ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... language of the parable, empty. To no purpose of our salvation is the Spirit of God present in the house, when the light of his presence does not flash forth from every part of it, when it is not manifest, not only that he has not quite cast it off to go to ruin, but that he has been pleased to make it ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... Clement; "but as long as it is not by our own fault we can take it as providential, and above all, guard against impatience, the real ruin ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... back of the Clemens home on Hill Street. There were three male members of the household: Old Ben, the father, shiftless and dissolute; young Ben, the eldest son—a doubtful character, with certain good traits; and Tom—that is to say, Huck, who was just as he is described in the book—a ruin of rags, a river-rat, kind of heart, and accountable for his conduct to nobody in the world. He could come and go as he chose; he never had to work or go to school; he could do all the things, good and bad, that other ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Henceforward the army has been its own master, and the master of the government and the country. A transitory mirage of internal tranquillity and subordination refreshed the Punjaub; the fiery elements of discord and ruin smouldered unextinguishably behind it, awaiting the necessity or the opportunity of a fresh eruption. The volcano was not permitted to slumber. Shere Singh, liberated from the imminent oppression of the soldiery, plunged headlong into a slough of detestable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... down hill. Harrod tried to force Clinch to sell. The millionaire tactics you know. He was determined to oust him. Clinch got mad and wouldn't sell at any price. Harrod kept on buying all around Clinch and posted trespass notices. That meant ruin to Clinch. He was walled in. No hunters care to be restricted. Clinch's little property was no good. Business stopped. His step-daughter's education became expensive. He as in a bad way. Harrod offered him a high price. But Clinch turned ugly and wouldn't budge. And that's ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... once this came to pass, were gone, their ruin questioned by alien hearts that knew not their spiritual meaning. But here the entire Desert swept in to form a shrine, and the Majesty that once was Egypt stepped grandly back across ages of denial and neglect. The sand was altar, and the stars were altar lights. The ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... long entertained a peculiar theory to account for the decadence and ruin of countries. My reading of the world's history seems to teach me that when a strong people take possession of a fertile land, they reduce it to cultivation, thrive upon its bountifulness, multiply into ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... gone too far? He wondered. Heaven knew, he could not afford to make enemies, especially at this juncture! But he had not misread the thought coursing through the foul mind of Diego. And yet, violence now might ruin both the child and himself. He must ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... exalt one part as against another part, and so build not upon the rock of unity and completeness, but upon the sand of partiality and division. And sooner or later the Whole revenges itself, and the fine-fanciful fabric crumbles to ruin, just for lack of that which in our short-sighted over-niceness we have taken such mighty great pains to miss out. This has happened times out of number in respect of religions, and philosophies, and the constitution of kingdoms, and in that of fair romances ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... tip. Richard had run her to earth in the spare bedroom, to which at this time she often repaired. For he objected to the piece of work she had on hand—that of covering yards of black cashmere with minute jet beads—vowing that she would ruin her eyesight over it. So, having set her heart on a fashionable polonaise, she was careful to keep out of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... to have seen with exultation the fate of the powerful Hindoo, who had attempted to rise by means of the ruin of Mahommed Reza Khan. The Mahommedan historian of those times takes delight in aggravating the charge. He assures us that in Nuncomar's house a casket was found containing counterfeits of the seals ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... itself. If the foundations themselves of morals and religion are destroyed, what can be done for the salvation of the creature? A heavy woe is denounced against any and every one who tempts a fellow-being. Temptation implies malice. It is Satanic. It betokens a desire to ruin an immortal spirit. When therefore the siren would allure a human creature from the path of virtue, the inspiration of God utters a deep and bitter curse against her. But when the cold-blooded Mephistopheles endeavors to sophisticate ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... squadron, alleging that it had been against his will. Though the admiral was satisfied that it had proceeded from evil intentions, well remembering the bold and mutinous proceedings of Pinzon during the voyage, he yet concealed his displeasure and accepted the excuses, lest he might ruin the voyage, as most of the crew were Martins countrymen, and several of them his relations. The truth is, that when Martin Alonzo forsook the admiral at Cuba, he went purposely away with the design of sailing to Bohio, where he learned from the Indians on board his caravel ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... difficult to understand the peculiar fascination which such a problem as he solved in Robinson Crusoe must have had for him. It was not merely that he had passed a life of uncertainty, often on the verge of precipices, and often saved from ruin by a buoyant energy which seems almost miraculous; not merely that, as he said of himself in one of his ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... conscience, but of impracticability and fear of detection. This would indeed have done him a serious injury. The discovery of such a villainous scheme would have spread like wildfire over the whole country. It would have been ruin to him. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... descendants, were still suffering from them, I remember asking a woman in an inn not far from Martel how an old gateway and other mediaeval buildings close by had been brought to such a sad state of ruin. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Ah! Ruin to the golden plans and to the golden age which they planned! Two letters which were delivered to Louise put a sudden end to them all! One of the letters was from Jacobi, was very short, and said only that the parsonage was quite gone from him; but that Louise would not blame him on that account, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the greatest misfortunes for the American people is to have considered as statesmen the rhetors, the petty politicians, and the speech-makers. Now, those rhetors, petty politicians, and speech-makers are at the helm, are in the Senate, and—ruin ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... answered the parson, and he was casting his eye over the huddled people before him when a wail came clear and distinct from within the ruin. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... all-pervading dissatisfaction with the existing state of things, but I have also found great devotion to the Union. I think we can yet save the seceded States. But at least let us save Texas and Arkansas. As it is, black ruin sits nursing the earthquake which threatens to level this Government to its foundations. Can you not feel it, while there is yet time to prepare for the shock? If this giant frenzy of disunion raises its crested head—if red battle stamps his foot, the North will ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... about to lift her up, when Miriam caught him by the arm, and in a hurried whisper—'Are you mad? Will you ruin your own purpose? Why did you tell her this? Why did you not wait—give her hope—time to collect herself—time to wean herself from her lover, instead of terrifying and disgusting her at the outset, as you have done? Have you a man's heart in you? ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... themselves in sucking it. If the bees seem lazy about coming out to work and any part of them get the habit of remaining in the hive, they should be fumigated and odoriferous herbs, like bees' balm and thyme, should be placed near the hive. Watchful care is necessary to protect them from ruin by heat or cold. If the bees are overtaken by a sudden rain or cold while at pasture (which rarely happens for they usually foresee such things) and are stricken down by the heavy rain drops and laid low and stunned, you should gather ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... opened. For a few minutes the Spanish returned the fire with Mausers, but as shell after shell crashed through the blockhouse, they abandoned it and fell back toward Coamo. Soon flames leaped upward from the roof, and an hour later the fort was but a smoldering ruin. ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... see," Lub went on to say; "afraid of the rain, of course. Well, I suppose it would ruin the ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... rich in graveyards—they seem to be a New England specialty—ancient and modern. Among the old burial-places the one attached to St. John's Church is perhaps the most interesting. It has not been permitted to fall into ruin, like the old cemetery at the Point of Graves. When a headstone here topples over it is kindly lifted up and set on its pins again, and encouraged to do its duty. If it utterly refuses, and is not shamming decrepitude, it has its face sponged, and is allowed to rest and sun itself against ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Spirit, "Oh, Thou eternal and infinite Spirit of God, I thank Thee for Thy great love that led Thee to come into this world of sin and darkness and to seek me out and to follow me so patiently until Thou didst bring me to see my utter ruin and need of a Saviour and to reveal to me my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, as just the Saviour whom I need." Yet we owe our salvation just as truly to the love of the Spirit as we do to the love of the Father and the love of ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... for me to ——, where 29 was with 80. He receiv'd me pretty well, and said 30 and 50 were the causes of my misfortune and would ruin me. After some hot words against them and against S., went away in a ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... affection for his ancient favorite lurked within his breast. John, yet fearing the overgrown power of the constable too much to encounter him openly, condescended to adopt the dastardly policy of Tiberius on a similar occasion, by caressing the man whom he designed to ruin, and he eventually obtained possession of his person, only by a violation of the royal safe-conduct. The constable's trial was referred to a commission of jurists and privy counsellors, who, after a ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... "Why should you ruin your life for him?" she said, with an outburst of indignation. All that was in her heart welled up in her eyes at the thought of what Foyle was. "You must not do it. You shall not do it. He must pay for his wickedness, not you. It would be a sin. You and what becomes of you mean so much." Suddenly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was also exposed to these secret persecutions. His ruin, and perhaps his death, would have been the consequence, had it not been for the intervention of an angelic woman, towards whom he felt ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... day forward, no word is to be uttered in my house concerning these German people. They are heretics, so pronounced by holy Church; and after that, no compassion may be shown to them. Heretics are monsters, demons in human form, who seek the ruin of souls. Remember ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... the seeds of that plant are provided with down, that enables them to float on the wind. The seeds of that thistle were borne on the breezes, and all over the colony of Victoria they found a lodging in the soil, grew and prospered, and sent out more seeds. That thistle has been the cause of ruin to many a sheep and cattle run all over Australia. Thousands, yes, millions, of acres of grass have been destroyed by that pernicious weed. Anathemas without number and of the greatest severity have been showered upon the thick-headed Scotchman who brought the plant to Australia, and the other ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... subtlety, may not seek to destroy our institute. Let us be careful that he does not withdraw from it the spirit of piety, simplicity, poverty, recollection, and mortification, interior and exterior, in order to introduce, under specious pretexts, the inevitable ruin of a soft, ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... time with men of his own caliber, he had learned his real weight on the day of his protest against the Easter adjournment. With that knowledge had been born the dominant factor in his whole scheme—the overwhelming, insistent desire to manifest his power. That desire that is the salvation or the ruin of every strong man who has once realized his strength. Supremacy was the note to which his ambition reached. To trample out Chilcote's footmarks with his own had been his tacit instinct from the first; now it rose paramount. It was the whole ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... of day the Holy Virgin appeared to me, and commanded me to forgive you. You shall not die. The grief that your treachery caused me made me pass all the night sleepless, since I knew that the letters you had given to the secretary would prove my ruin—and my one consolation was to believe that in three days I should see you die in this very cell. But though my mind was full of my revenge—unworthy of a Christian—at break of day the image of the Blessed Virgin that ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... index on some of our social story. The Countess Livia, not an innocent like Henrietta had escaped the poisoned tongues by contracting a third marriage—'in time!' Lady Arpington said; and the knotty question was presented to a young mind: Why are the innocents tempted to their ruin, and the darker natures allowed an escape? Any street-boy could have told her of the virtue in quick wits. But her unexercised reflectiveness was on the highroad of accepted doctrines, with their chorus of the moans of gossips for supernatural intervention ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... startled them was the unexpected appearance in their midst of the very man Tommy had been talking of. Taking a stroll through the Den, Mr. McLean had been drawn toward the ruin by the first cheers, and had arrived in time to learn who and what he ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... The leading authors whose work I had so long illustrated saw ruin staring them in the face. They came to me, on their knees, figuratively. They begged. They pleaded. They hid in the vestibule of my flat. I should say, my studio. They even came up in my dumb-waiter, having bribed the janitor. They wouldn't take no for an answer. In order to escape ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... cause. Could I have wished for a more favourable reception?—But mark the issue. He was the nearest relation of a rich person concerned in the traffic; and if he were to come forward with his evidence publicly, he should ruin all his expectations from that quarter. In the same week I have visited another at a still greater distance. I have met with similar applause. I have heard him describe scenes of misery which he had witnessed, and on the relation ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... farm-steadings, and the gray, gaunt gable-ends of what had been chateaux. Broken fences, crumbling walls, vineyards littered with stones, the shattered arches of bridges—look where you might, the signs of ruin and rapine met the eye. Here and there only, on the farthest sky-line, the gnarled turrets of a castle, or the graceful pinnacles of church or of monastery showed where the forces of the sword or of the spirit had preserved some small islet of security in this ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were again becoming precarious, much to Isabella's frank concern. "It's the wretched condition of the theatre in our country," she complained; "to think that a few miserable newspaper writers can ruin the chances of a dramatist's being heard! The managers become panicky, if it doesn't go at once in New York.... There is a chance that they will put it on again somewhere West. But Tom hasn't ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... contrived thine own utter ruin, driven thereto, I ween, by fate, surely thou hast made thy tongue as sharp as thy wits. Hence thou hast uttered these vain and ambiguous babblings. Had I not promised, at the beginning of our converse, to banish Anger from mid court, I had now given ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... bare and scathed across their leafy arms, as if unwilling to disturb the general repose by the crash of their fall. Vistas of silence opened everywhere, into the heart and innermost recesses of the wood; beginning with the likeness of an aisle, a cloister, or a ruin open to the sky; then tangling off into a deep green rustling mystery, through which gnarled trunks, and twisted boughs, and ivy-covered stems, and trembling leaves, and bark-stripped bodies of old trees stretched out at length, were faintly seen in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of the city deserters, Ponet, Harper, and others, urged Wyatt to leave the gun where it lay and keep his appointment. Wyatt, however, insisted on waiting till the carriage could be repaired, although in the eyes of every one but himself the delay was obvious ruin. Harper, seeing him obstinate, stole away a second time to gain favour for himself by carrying news to the court. Ponet, unambitious of martyrdom, told him he would pray God for his success, and, advising ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... necessity of efforts to save herself from impending ruin; she became taunting and aggressive in her manners and acts, and resorted at length to violence, reminding one of the oft-repeated proverb, 'Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.' History has no readings for the comfort of slavery. There is a progress in human affairs, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... higher under the crag, its height and bulk dwarfed both pursuer and pursued into nutshells. The main-truck of the Ranger was nine hundred feet below the foundations of the ruin on the crag's top: ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... nature rash to recklessness, at home on the battlefield and delighting in danger, with a real genius for the management of a battle and a personality whose charm won him the absolute devotion of his men. But he was also proud and selfish, and these qualities caused his ruin. ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... matter, Carrie?" inquired the man. "Don't be scared. I wouldn't hurt you. I'm just lonesome, that's all, and I need society. Don't rush, you'll ruin your complexion. Here! come under my wing and let's toddle along together. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... are most worthy the notice of a passenger. He observed to me that buildings are always best preserved in places little frequented and difficult of access; for when once a country declines from its primitive splendour, the more inhabitants are left, the quicker ruin will be made. Walls supply stones more easily than quarries; and palaces and temples will be demolished to make stables of ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... fall nor faster, From the sun's serene dominions, Not through brighter realms nor vaster, In swift ruin and disaster, Icarus fell ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... quietibus sedari poterat. He could not be quieted either by watching or by repose," are indications of his being as active and indefatigable as Catiline, but from a very different cause. The conspiratour from schemes of ruin and destruction to Rome; the patriot from schemes of liberty and felicity ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... eyes sparkled with intelligence, but it was chiefly the intelligence of suffering, of privation, of keen sense of wrong, of inability to be better, of rankling hatred against existing institutions, and a furtive wish that some hideous calamity would bury them all in one common, undistinguishable ruin. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... all the various arguments that may be found in the public papers of that time, which were of my writing, and are printed with the minutes of the Assembly; and the governor pleaded his instructions, the bond he had given to observe them, and his ruin if he disobey'd, yet seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord Loudoun would advise it. This his lordship did not chuse to do, though I once thought I had nearly prevail'd with him to do it; but finally ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... breast through her coffin-boards! This old man could eat, and he could withhold the means due to his dead sister's son. Could he look on Chillon and not feel that the mother's heart was beating in her son's fortunes? Half the money due to Chillon would have saved him from ruin. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... never been healthy anywhere else. Gothicism, driven southward, runs speedily to seed; an amazing luxuriance, a riot, strange flowers of heavy shapes and maddening savour; and then that worse corruption to follow a perfection premature. So mediaeval Christianity in Umbria is a ruin, but not for Salvator Rosa; it has not been suffered a dignified death. That is the sharpest cut of all, that the poor bleached skull must be decked ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... W'at? Vous hold nuss—hold Georgie—not know Miss Letty. Ho! Miss Letty! my hold 'art's a-busted a'most! But you's come back. T'ank do Lor'! Look 'ere, Miss Letty." (He started up, put the child down, and, with sudden energy seized the bottle of ruin by the neck.) "Look ere, yous oftin say to me afore you hoed away, 'Geo'gie, do, do give up ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... monument still looked dull and unfinished. It was necessary to polish it, in order to efface the scars of point and mallet. This was a most delicate operation, one slip of the hand, or a moment's forgetfulness, being enough to ruin the labour of many weeks. The dexterity of the Egyptian craftsman was, however, so great that accidents rarely happened. The Sebekemsaf of Gizeh, the colossal Rameses II. of Luxor, challenge the closest examination. ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... bold height with trembling step he passed, And gained the fearful eminence he sought; As on surrounding scenes his eye was cast, His troubled spirit racked with frenzied thought, And urged by ruin on his empire brought, He uttered curses on the pale-faced throng, With whom in vain his scattered warriors fought And on the sighing breeze that swept along, He poured the fiery words that filled his ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... the City, to the Sepulchre, to the Manger, to the Cross, to all the memorials in which the Church delights as a wife in what has been worn by her husband. Hence arose against us the hatred of the Jews, cruel and implacable. Even now they complain that our ancestors were the ruin of their ancestors. From Simon Magus and the Lutherans they have received no wound. Among the heathen, they were the most violent who, throughout the Roman Empire, for three hundred years, at intervals of time, contrived most painful punishments for Christians. ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... displeased expression, and after a moment the man turned pale and began to tremble, for he saw that he had given grave offence, and to rouse the anger of a hunchback, especially in the morning, might bring accident, ruin, and perhaps sudden death before sunset. He shook all over, and the blue eyes never winked, and seemed to grow more and more angry till they positively blazed with wrath, and, at last, the fellow uttered a cry of abject ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... your conscientiousness with regard to Bruce doesn't come in the way now? Why would it ruin him ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... with great respect. His tour was a personal triumph; but the very voters who hung eagerly on his speeches felt him to be too impulsive and opinionated to be trusted with presidential powers. They knew the worst which might be expected of Grant; they could not guess the ruin which Greeley's dynamic powers might bring on the country if he used them unwisely. In the end many of the original leaders of the Liberal movement supported Grant as the lesser of two evils. The Liberal ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... religious theory, utterly opposed to the position of those who are horrified at every demonstration of mirth and playfulness in social life, and who seem to think that everything, decent and immortal, depends upon the style in which people carry their feet. On the other hand, I can see nothing but ruin, moral and physical, in the dissipations of the ball-room, which have despoiled thousands of young men and women of all that gives dignity to character, or usefulness ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... damned outrage!" sez Jabez, his eyes flashin'. "Take 'thought' an' through,' an' 'though'—why, it's enough to ruin the morals of the best child the' is. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... feel absolutely certain that I have not dragged you down in my ruin I should face the rifles ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... for your Majesty's royal treasury being so embarrassed. For the governors to equip armed fleets is a very difficult enterprise; for from that time until the present people have been bewailing the heavy costs, and regretting the ruin of the Indians who perished in the shipyards. If this colony is preserved in its present condition, not displaying our weakness to the enemies, but rather giving them and all the neighboring peoples to understand, even with a few ships, that your Majesty is lord of these seas—except of the strait ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... boated so skilfully that he and his intended would have been united without ceremony by Father Nep, at the bottom of the British Channel, but for David Dodd, who was hovering near in jealous anguish and a cutter. He saved them both, but in the doing of it missed his ship, and professional ruin faced him. Then good-hearted Lucy was miserable, and appealed to Mr. Bazalgette, and he managed somehow to get David made captain of the Rajah. The poor girl thought she had squared the account ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... so you think we are undone!—not at all; if folly and extravagance are symptoms of nation's being at the height of their glory, as after-observers pretend that they are forerunners Of its ruin, we never were in a more flourishing situation. My Lord Rockingham and my nephew Lord Orford have made a match of five hundred pounds, between five turkeys and five geese, to run from Norwich to London. Don't you believe in the transmigration ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... estate was managed by an agent who made short work of paupers, and evicted "Dark" Andy from his ancestral hovel. Andy did not seem to know his misfortune. He spent the day of the eviction, as usual, at the Cross-roads, and came back at night to a ruin. His neighbour, Larry Ronan the blacksmith, was grieved to see that he took the change as a matter of course, and that after groping in the four corners of the cabin he sat on the window-ledge as if unaware that nothing was left of ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... like an old quarry—so old that the shrubbery on the sides had grown into good-sized trees, and the whole place was covered with herbage of one sort or another. In one corner of the excavation, which must have covered some two acres, there was the ruin of an adobe house, while near the center was a stone structure made of four stone pillars about twenty feet apart and roofed over with two huge stone slabs, set so as to form a gable roof. Except for its size, it had the appearance ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler |
