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Subversion   /səbvˈərʒən/   Listen
Subversion

noun
1.
Destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity.  Synonym: corruption.  "The big city's subversion of rural innocence"
2.
The act of subverting; as overthrowing or destroying a legally constituted government.  Synonym: subversive activity.






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"Subversion" Quotes from Famous Books



... provide a home for the American Negro, should the demented Eunice prove to be a wiser prophet than the hopeful, irrepressible Earl; should the good people of America, North and South, grow busy, confused or irresolute and fail, to the subversion of their ideals, to firmly entrench the Negro in his political rights, the denial of which, and the blight incident thereto, more than all other factors, cause the Ethiopian in America to feel that his is ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... (xxxi. 3) and Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions, but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... to the welfare of civilization is the complete subversion during the world war of nearly all the international laws which had been slowly built up in a thousand years. These principles, as codified by the two Hague Conventions, were immediately swept aside in the fierce struggle for existence, and civilized man, ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... Great Britain; that the act lately passed for blockading the port of Boston was contrary to the British constitution; that the act for abolishing the charter of Massachusetts Bay tended to the subversion of American rights; that the Parliament of Great Britain had not, nor ever had, the right to tax his Majesty's American subjects; and that every demand for the support of government should be by requisition made to the several houses of representatives. The resolutions covered ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... makes it plain beyond all doubt that communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... ashamed of having let it go so far. But she would never do it—never. She declared she would write to this Mr. Arnold and thank him, and ask him to pray for her, "and she as much as ordered me to go and do the same," concluded Mrs. Sand with an inflection which made its own comment upon such a subversion of discipline. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... her confessor and her attendants strove to awaken her interest to the dissatisfaction of the people with the wild projects of reform that threatened the subversion of all social order. From the day of her retirement, Maria Theresa had forbidden the slightest allusion to politics. Her confesser had on one occasion ventured a hint on the subject of the changes which were being made by the emperor, but the empress had turned her flashing ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... build republics in the air and try to obtain political perfection, presupposing the perfection of the human race, in such a way that we have philosophers as leaders, philanthropy instead of law, dialectic instead of tactics, and sophists instead of soldiers. With this subversion of things, social order was shaken up, and from its very beginning advanced with rapid strides towards universal dissolution, which very ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... to the usurper Bustamente. It was an independent state in all respects, excepting those powers it had conceded to the general government by adopting the Federal Constitution. The subversion of this Constitution reinstated Texas as an independent republic. It owed no farther allegiance to Mexico. Texas might at once have applied for admission into our Union, or have asked to be annexed to any other foreign state, pleading not only her inherent right to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... people saw in their terrible experiences and in the outrages to which they had been subjected, only the mal-administration of laws and the subversion of justice through human incapacity and hatred. Never even for a moment did they question the supreme authority and the inspired origin of the constitution of their land. They knew no North, no South, no East, no West; they stood positively by ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... upon other strata with Ammonites and Belemnites, we may be sure that the physical evidence is delusive; and though the above is an extreme case, the presumption in all such instances is rather that the physical succession has been misunderstood or misconstrued, than that there has been a subversion of the recognised ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... This subversion, commenced by art and learning in the inner man, was carried out to fulness and finished by the spirit of innovation in government. It was, no doubt, reasonable to expect that the simple organisation of the primitive republics should survive the quaintness ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... it probable, therefore, that the supreme and irresponsible power, which is now claimed for Congress over boundless territories, the use of which cannot fail to react upon the political system of the States, to its subversion, was ever within the contemplation of the statesmen who conducted the counsels of the people in the formation of this Constitution? When the questions that came to the surface upon the acquisition of Louisiana were presented to the mind of Jefferson, he wrote: "I had rather ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... fixing on their motives. Both revolutions profess liberty as their object; but in obtaining this object the one proceeds from anarchy to order; the other from order to anarchy. The first secures its liberty by establishing its throne; the other builds its freedom on the subversion of its monarchy. In the one their means are unstained by crimes, and their settlement favours morality. In the other, vice and confusion are in the very essence of their pursuit, and of their enjoyment. The circumstances in which these two events differ, must ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Congress, who had the virtue to defy the threats and cajolements of their party-leaders, when this great public crime was demanded at their hands, were sincere in the resistance they opposed to this subversion of all the principles in which they had been bred, and of which their party had always professed to be the special defence and guard. But the mantle of our charity is not wide enough to cover up the base treachery of those ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... deist's religion; 6 on immortality; 7 on Arians, Trinitarians, and Councils; 8 that felicity is pleasure; 9 of fate and fortune; 10 of the original of the Jews; 11 of the lawfulness of marrying two sisters successively; 12 of the subversion of Judaism, and the origin of the Millennium; 13 of the auguries of the ancients; 14 of natural religion; 15 that the soul is matter; 16 that ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... right of petition, the liberty of Kansas, your liberty, sir, or mine, to one who lends himself, not merely to the support at home, but to the propagandism abroad, of that preposterous wrong, which denies even the right of a man to himself! Such a cause can be maintained only by a practical subversion of all rights. It is, therefore, merely according to reason that its partisans should uphold the Usurpation ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... From the subversion of the Roman empire, to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, women spent most of their time alone. They were almost entire strangers to the joys of social life. They seldom went abroad, but to be spectators of such public diversions and amusements as the fashion of the times ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... concealed his desire for the overthrow of Lorenzo and the subversion of the Florentine Government, and his hostility found a whole-hearted response in the persons of Count Girolamo de' Riari, Archbishop Francesco de' Salviati, and Cavaliere Francesco de' Pazzi. The Pope exulted openly in what capital he could make out ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... means when "Negro rule" is to be prevented, and to protest against this bold subversion of the great principles of citizenship in the Republic, is to "wave the bloody shirt." We will admit that it is by no means desirable that a mass of illiterate people should hold sway, but we claim that the Southern white ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various

... expect," said he, with indignant eloquence, "to see the earth take the place of heaven, since you, oh Spartans, meditate the subversion of equal laws and the restoration of tyrannical governments—a design than which nothing can be more unjust, nothing more wicked. If you think it well that states should be governed by tyrants, Spartans, before you ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... any outward attack; for which reason they are generally very stable; but they have many causes of subversion within; of which two are the principal; one is when those who are in power [1313a] excite a sedition, the other when they endeavour to establish a tyranny by assuming greater power than the law gives them. A kingdom, indeed, is not what we ever see erected in our times, but rather monarchies ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle

... would be endowed with a larger power of control in the National Government than the loyal soldier who fought to maintain the Union. To allow this to be accomplished would be a mere mockery of justice, the utter subversion of fair play between ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... trappers, they now recoiled upon themselves and rolled back eastward to meet the advancing civilization of the westbound rails, caring nothing for history and less for the civilized society in which they formerly had lived. This story of bedlam broken loose, of men gone crazed, by the sudden subversion of all known values and all standards of life, was at first something which had no historian and can be recorded only by way of hearsay stories which do not always tally as ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough

... domestic as well as foreign; and that any intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions of the others, on any pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, with the view to their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, insulting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquillity—objects for which the Constitution was formed—and, by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... subjects to the shadow of smoke. Of the confidently promised reform of Mahometan dominion there was never a beginning nor a sign. The vindication of the standing European order proved so ineffectual that the Crimean war was only the sanguinary prelude to a vast subversion of the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... them, or when the master of the family died; and then if not ashamed to beg, too lewd to work, and ready for any kind of mischief. Owing to these co-operating causes, a huge population of outcasts was produced, numerous enough seriously to infest society, yet not so large as to threaten its subversion. ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... Bonaparte, in which representations, as just as energetic, were made, which, however, did not alter the intent of our Government or increase the favour of the Russian Ambassador at the Court of St. Cloud. But it proved that our schemes of subversion are suspected, and that our agents of overthrow would be watched and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... pretended Assembly there were no free voicing; for the voicers were threatned to voice affirmative, under no lesse pain nor the wrath of authoritie, imprisonment, banishemnt, deprivation of ministers, and utter subversion of the state: Yea, it was plainly professed, that neither reasoning nor the number of voices should carie the matter away: Which is qualified by the declaration of many honest old reverend Brethren ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... of one almost uninhabited spot near Bay St. Louis.[446] This intervention was justified on the ground of a claim to the territory, asserted to be valid; and occasion for it was found in the danger of a foreign interference, resulting from the subversion of Spanish authority by a revolutionary movement. By Great Britain it was regarded as a usurpation, to effect which advantage had been taken of the embarrassment of the Spaniards when struggling against Napoleon for national existence. On May 14, 1812, being then on the verge of war with Great Britain, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... assist in attacking the capital. With them, as with the more openly rebellious States, the new theory of "Coercion" was ingeniously arranged like a valve, yielding at the slightest impulse to the passage of forces for the subversion of legitimate authority, closing imperviously so that no drop of power could ooze through in the opposite direction. Lord de Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, who, pinning his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... for peaceable existence? Precisely this—that however important the interests about which men fell out, the conflict did not affect the fundamental principle of the system of social union which happened to exist; nor threaten large portions of the community with the subversion of that on which they had built their calculations, and with which their hopes and aims had become identified. But when the questioning of these fundamental principles is (not the occasional disease, or salutary medicine, but) the habitual condition of the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... to reserve officers at the War College in July, 1961, Mr. Barnett denounced "crackpots" who hunt "pinkos" in local colleges. He said the theory that internal subversion is the chief danger to the United States is fallacious—and is harmful, because it has great popular appeal. Belief in this theory, Mr. Barnett said, makes people mistakenly feel that they "don't have to think about ... strengthening NATO, or improving foreign aid management, ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... were almost everywhere hostile to it. It was a mistake to suppose that this was the feeling of France alone; it might be expressed more loudly there, but it was, in fact, universal. The enemies of progress and the partisans of political subversion looked on England as their worst adversary: the former charged her with being the hotbed of revolutionary propagandism; the latter, perhaps with more reason, considered the English aristocracy as the corner-stone of the social edifice ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... universal—planters immersed in debt for lands, for negroes, for food, for fabrics—merchants overhead in debt to the importers and jobbers of the Northern sea-ports—every one owing more or less, and few able or willing to pay: such was the general pecuniary condition of the South at the outset of this subversion. It is no libel on the South to say that relief from the pressure of over-due obligations was primarily sought by an immense number, in plunging into the abyss of revolution. And a great proportion of the Southern merchants, with full intent ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... seem designed to kindle in the audience a flame of opposition, patriotism, publick spirit, and independency; that spirit which we have so long endeavoured to suppress, and which cannot be revived without the entire subversion of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... been told, are found in greatest quantity among a civilization's most depressed elements. Poverty breeds dissatisfaction; the have-nots want to take from those who have. Therefore, the logical place to look for subversion ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... of two hands in the process of its owner's own transformation. Thus the old sergeant had seen a general remonstrate with a brave veteran who had been guilty of bad conduct in Africa. The old colonel gasped at such a subversion of the dignity of rank. He saw the army going to the devil. But young Dellarme, watching with eager curiosity, was sensible of no familiarity in the act. It all depended on how such a thing ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... Whatever its faults, as afterwards discerned by the critics, it opened a new and brilliant page to the uninitiated reader, and increased his reputation very greatly. The history is preceded by a View of the Progress of Society in Europe from the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century. The best praise that can be given to this View is, that students have since used it as the most excellent summary of that kind existing. Of the history itself it may ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... the monarchs of mankind. She instantly took the shape which, like the magicians of old commanding their familiar spirits, the great magician of our age commanded her to assume. Peace—the rights of man—the mutual ties of nations—the freedom of the serf and the slave—the subversion of all the abuses of the ancient thrones—all the old nominal principles of revolutionary patriotism, were instantly thrown aside, like the rude weapons of a peasant insurrection, the pike and the ox-goad, for the polished and powerful weapons of royal armouries. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... To prevent this subversion of the ancient establishment, Steele, whose pen readily seconded his political passions, endeavoured to alarm the nation by a pamphlet called the Plebeian. To this an answer was published by Addison, under the title of the Old Whig, in which ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... trial of Hardy, one of the secretaries of the chief treasonable society. The bill brought in by the grand jury had included twelve. The charges were those of "compassing the death of the king, and the subversion of the government." Hardy was a shoemaker, a man of low attainments, but active, and strongly republican. His activity had made him secretary to the London Corresponding Society, and by its direction a member of a similar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... Leave father, mother, house and lands, and follow me. Who leaves all, receives more. This is as true intellectually as morally. Each new mind we approach seems to require an abdication of all our past and present possessions. A new doctrine seems at first a subversion of all our opinions, tastes, and manner of living. Such has Swedenborg, such has Kant, such has Coleridge, such has Hegel or his interpreter Cousin seemed to many young men in this country. Take ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... driven to tell ye the trowth. It's mony a lang sin' I hae kent mysel' wantin' you. Ye're the boady, an' I'm the shaidow. I dinna mean nae hyperbolics—that's the w'y the thing luiks to me i' my ain thouchts. Eh, mem, but ye're bonnie! Ye dinna ken yersel' hoo bonnie ye are, nor what a subversion you mak i' my hert an' my heid. I cud jist cut my heid aff, an' lay 't aneth yer feet to haud them aff o' the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... it must still be acknowledged, that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... very day (Let me be sure) that I put forth from London, There was a whale discover'd in the river, As high as Woolwich, that had waited there, Few know how many months, for the subversion Of ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... Henry earl of Darnly, a proclamation was made in 1565, signifying, That forasmuch as certain rebels who, under the colour of religion, (meaning those who opposed the measures of the court) intended nothing but the subversion of the commonwealth, therefore they charged all manner of men, under pain of life, lands, and goods, to resort and meet their majesties at Linlithgow on the 24th of August. Upon Sabbath the 19th, the king came to the high church of Edinburgh, where Mr. Knox preached from ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... far as this movement is directed to the immediate subversion of British rule, we need not exaggerate its importance, unless the British Empire were involved in serious complications elsewhere which might encourage the seditious elements in India to break out into open rebellion. We are too often, in fact, inclined to underrate the strength ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... abuse may extend from beasts of different kinds to men, though it takes its first rise from evil practices about such smaller things. Nor is any thing to be allowed, by imitation whereof any degree of subversion may creep into the constitution. Nor do the laws neglect small matters, but provide that even those may be ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... when he favoured the revolution of the 18th Fructidor, was now about to be realized. It was then an indispensable part of his plan that the Directory should violate the constitution in order to justify a subsequent subversion of the Directory. The expressions which escaped him from time to time plainly showed that his ambition was not yet satisfied, and that the Consulship was only a state of probation preliminary to the complete establishment of monarchy. The Luxembourg was then discovered ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... clearly given up the policy of the question. They had been determined by the justice of it. Why were they then to be troubled again with arguments of this nature? These, if admitted, would go to the subversion of all public as well as private morality. Nations were as much bound as individuals to a system of morals, though a breach in the former could not be so easily punished. In private life morality took pretty good care of itself. It was a kind of retail article, in which the returns ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... the girl Gorcut, known as Athenais, under Brotteaux's very roof, he is the accomplice of the said girl and the said ci-devant nobleman. During his imprisonment at the Conciergerie he has never ceased for one single day writing pamphlets aimed at the subversion of ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... (who would believe it?) a vicar-general of the Inquisition in France, by name Brother Martin.[8] It was one of the most horrible effects of the total subversion of that unfortunate country. Brother Martin claimed the prisoner as smelling of heresy (odorantem haeresim). He called upon the Duke of Burgundy and the Comte de Ligny, "by the right of his office, and of the authority given to him by the Holy See, to deliver Joan ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... to you, from the authority of these parties themselves, the effects and consequences of these proceedings,—namely, the dilapidation of the revenues, and the ruin and desolation of the provinces. And, my Lords, what else could have been expected or designed by this sweeping subversion of the control of the Company's servants over the collections of the revenue, and the vesting of it in a black dewan, but fraud and peculation? What else, I say, was to be expected, in the inextricable turnings and windings of that black mystery ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... consolidated corruption, and not in a renovated Constitution, relief were to be found; that thus there are left no human means of redressing the people's wrongs or composing their distracted minds, or of preventing the subversion of liberty and the establishment of despotism, unless by calling the collected wisdom and virtue of the community into counsel by the election of a free Parliament; and therefore, considering that, through the usurpation of borough factions and other ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... that of allowing it to wives? The idea of taking a young girl on trial makes more serious men think than fools laugh. The manners of Germany, of Switzerland, of England and of the United States give to young ladies such rights as in France would be considered the subversion of all morality; and yet it is certain that in these countries there are fewer unhappy marriages than ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... evolution of society from pure monarchy to pure democracy, these republics of the negative phase mark a stage of progress; but if regarded as finalities they were a type far less admirable on the whole than decent monarchies. In respect especially to their susceptibility to corruption and plutocratic subversion they were the worst kind of government possible. The nineteenth century, during which this crop of pseudo-democracies ripened for the sickle of the great Revolution, seems to the modern view nothing but a dreary interregnum of nondescript, faineant government ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... consult him about my reading, and to confide in him her sufferings, as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me to a state of the most abject bondage. She had designs of domination and subversion regarding the entire household, I now believe, worthy of the evil ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... nothing but that is after their own fancy, and cease not to make trouble and disquietude when things be most quiet and in good order." {35} Their argument (Knox's favourite), that whatever is not commanded in Scripture is unlawful and ungodly, "is a subversion of all order as well in religion ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... cannot excuse by the facility and assurance of absolution which you offer them? . . . The licence which your teachers have assumed of tampering with the most holy rules of Christian conduct amounts to a total subversion of the Divine law. They violate the great commandment which embraces the law and the prophets; they strike at the very heart of piety; they take away the spirit which giveth life. They say that the love of God is not necessary to salvation; they even go ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... most of the influential Priesthood, and a small section of the rural Peasantry; all these combined may number Four Millions, leaving Thirty Millions for the Nation. Such is France in 1851; and, being such, the subversion of the Republic, whether by foreign assault or domestic treason, is hardly possible. An open attack by the Autocrat and his minions would certainly consolidate it; a prolongation of Louis Napoleon's power (no longer probable) would have the same effect. Four years more of ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... wither the marrow of a weak man. But the schoolmaster was no weak man. His foot was entirely on his native heath, I assure you. He knew every inch of the ground, from the domination of the absolute faith in the ages of Fetichism, to its pseudo-presentment in the tenth century, and its actual subversion in the nineteenth. Every step. Our politicians might have picked up an idea or two there, I should think! Then he was so cool about it, so skilful! He fairly rubbed his hands with glee, enjoying the combat. And he was so sure that the Doctor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... with an entire subversion of every one of the compacts by which the United States became possessed of their Western domain, and treats the subject as if they never had existence and as if the United States were the original and unconditional owners of all the public ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... long statement, written when the uprising was but a few weeks old, declared that Bacon's "only aim has always been and is nothing else but of total subversion of the government." Thomas Ludwell and Robert Smith, who at the time were in England, on receiving reports of the rebellion, said that when the Indian raids began "some idle and poor people made use of the present conjunction ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... religion, by pretending to receive revelations direct from heaven, by pretending to speak unknown tongues by direct inspirations, and by divers pretences derogatory of God and religion, and to the utter subversion ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... with... there would follow the speedy and total ruin of the kingdom, of his Lordship and of the Church's influence in this kingdom."[585] "I cannot reflect upon it," wrote Wolsey himself, "and close my eyes, for I see ruin, infamy and subversion of the whole dignity and estimation of the See Apostolic if this course is persisted in. You see in what dangerous times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and how much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that the course he now pursues will drive the ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... that art should be moral, we should rather say that all true morality is art—that art is the test of morality. To attempt to make this heavenly Pegasus draw the sordid plough of our selfish moralistic prejudices is a grotesque subversion of true order. Why should the novelist make believe that the wicked are punished and the good are rewarded in this world? Does he not know, on the contrary, that whatsoever is basest in our common life tends irresistibly to the highest places, and that the selfish element in our nature ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... lead the common people into endless mistakes, and the Woman would gain whatever the Circles lost, in the deference of the passers by. As for the scandal that would befall the Circular Class if the frivolous and unseemly conduct of the Women were imputed to them, and as to the consequent subversion of the Constitution, the Female Sex could not be expected to give a thought to these considerations. Even in the households of the Circles, the Women were all in favour of ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... 61. [Subversion of Order; bringing into disorder.] Derangement — N. derangement &c v.; disorder &c 59; evection^, discomposure, disturbance; disorganization, deorganization^; dislocation; perturbation, interruption; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... prophecy, delivered at a time when the catastrophe was exceedingly improbable, appears to have induced not a few to think more favourably of the credentials of the gospel. In another point of view the ruin of the ancient capital of Judea proved advantageous to the Church. In the subversion of their chief city the power of the Jews sustained a shock from which it has never since recovered; and the disciples were partially delivered from the attacks of their most restless ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... dancing with a red-haired young lady, in a blue gauze dress. Seeing us, and wishing to astonish us, he attempted a quadruple pigeon-wing, which unfortunately entangled his great feet in the blue gauze dress, and ended in his own subversion and the dismemberment of the thin gauze. The young lady was obliged to retire for the night, while Cousin Jehoiakim slowly picked himself up. He was so much abashed I had to console him by asking him to dance ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... wrapped the king's insult to a female of the House of Warwick by the simple sentence, "The certainty was not, for both their honours, openly known!"] True, that in his change of party he was not, like Julian of Spain, an apostate to his native land. He did not meditate the subversion of his country by the foreign foe; it was but the substitution of one English monarch for another,—a virtuous prince for a false and a sanguinary king. True, that the change from rose to rose had been so common ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... division, encouraged strife, and were as ultra and as unreasonable in their demands and exactions as the secessionists. Some had welcomed war with grim satisfaction, and were for prosecuting it unrelentingly with fire and sword to the annihilation of the rights, and the absolute subversion of the Southern States and subjection of the Southern people. There was in their ranks unreasoning fanaticism, and ferocity that partook of barbarism, with a mixture of political intrigue fatal to our Federal system. These ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... great events were in progress, which led to the subversion of British power in America, an under-current of feeling, if not of incidents, was running in this valley, which threatened to wash away the foundations of the captain's authority. Joel and the miller, if not downright conspirators, had hopes, calculations, and even ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... currently working to bring down tribal prejudices against the coming of the schools. He had his work cut out for him in the Dogon, the old men, the tribal elders they called Hogons, instinctively knew that the coming of education meant subversion of their institutions and the eventual loss ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... revolutions of antiquity: "Everything is surprising if we only consider particular causes, and yet everything goes forward in regular sequence,'' expresses an intention which he very imperfectly realises: "to show in the Revolution, which seems to some the subversion and to others the regeneration of the old European world, the natural and necessary result of the history of Europe, and to show, moreover, that this revolution had no result—not even the most unexpected—that did not ensue from this history, ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... It was impossible, when moral principles are instilled into the human mind, when people are regularly taught their duty to God and man, that abominable tenets can prevail to the subversion of subordination and society. He would venture to assert, though the power of the sword was great, that the force of education was greater. It was notorious that the writings of one man, Mr. Burke, had changed the opinions of the whole people of England against the French ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... Haydn, Mozart, etc., and had found a manuscript score of an opera which he had committed to memory. His soul revolted more and more from the path cut out for him. "Become a physician!" he cried, "study anatomy; dissect; take part in horrible operations? No! no! That would be a total subversion of the natural course of ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... conclude, this sole vice, in my opinion, spoiled in him the most rich and beautiful nature that ever was, and has rendered his name abominable to all good men, in that he would erect his glory upon the ruins of his country and the subversion of the greatest and most flourishing republic the world ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... cheer a man who should see his abode carried away, and his fields and plantations devastated, to tell him that the agent of this ruin was only a transient mountain torrent. A short prevalence of the overturning force would have sufficed for the subversion of the proudest, longest established state of privilege; and most improbable would it be, that those who lost it in the tumult, would find the new authority, of whatever shape or name it were, that would arise as that ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... motion or resolution; but a motion properly before an assembly may be altered in any way; even so as to turn it entirely from its original purpose, unless some rule or law shall exist to prevent this subversion. An amendment may be amended, but here the process must cease. An amendment must of course be put to vote before the original question. A motion to amend holds the same rank as the previous question and indefinite postponement, and that which is moved first ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... power between the various classes. The more complete the balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a preponderating influence. The judicial, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... obstructed in every way in the performance of his duties; the act of the colony in setting up a naval office of its own; the revival of an old law imposing the death penalty upon any one who should "attempt the alteration or subversion of the frame of government"; the opinion of the Attorney-General that the colony had done quite enough to warrant the forfeiture of its charter; and the delay in sending the agents, which seemed a further ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... live thou, and counsel still the king To maintain justice, were it on himself, Rather than, soothing him in his abuse, To see subversion of his commonwealth. I tell thee, Dunstan, thou hast pleased the king, And proved thyself a virtuous councillor: Thy counsel is to me as North-Star light, That guides the sailor to his wished port; ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... my friends," said the engineer. "Lincoln Island does not resemble the other islands of the Pacific, and a fact of which Captain Nemo has made me cognisant must sooner or later bring about the subversion of its foundation." ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... a new alliance for progress—to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... the old government held mercantile pursuits, and the obloquy that attached on merchants and manufacturers, contributed not a little to its embarrassments, and its eventual subversion; and, strange to tell, though the mischiefs arising from this mode of conduct are so obvious, yet an article is proposed for your adoption which has a manifest tendency to restore a defect inherent in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... commercial disturbance, involving widespread debt, entailed an amount of personal suffering and humiliation of which, in these kinder days, we can form no adequate conception. It tended to make the debtor an outlaw, ready to entertain schemes for the subversion of society. In the crisis of 1786, the agitation in Rhode Island and Massachusetts reached white heat, and things were done which alarmed the whole country. But the course of events was different in the two states. In Rhode Island the agitators obtained control of the government, and the result ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... villa Laurentana, Tully's Tusculan, Jovius' study, that they might better vacare studiis et Deo, serve God, and follow their studies. Methinks, therefore, our too zealous innovators were not so well advised in that general subversion of abbeys and religious houses, promiscuously to fling down all; they might have taken away those gross abuses crept in amongst them, rectified such inconveniences, and not so far to have raved and raged against those fair buildings, and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... should, after Monday, the 7th of November, retain in his or their service any one or more of the persons described in a former order, such persons should be considered as encouraging a set of lawless and seditious people, to the total subversion of all order and government, and to the weakening of His Majesty's authority in the settlement. He next informed the people whose conduct had occasioned this order, that if they were of opinion, that to threaten would be the best means of obtaining what they ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... to them. Mr. Muhammad Yusuf quotes an inscription as existing at Bhandak in Chanda of the year A.D. 1326, in which it is mentioned that the Panwar of Dhar repaired a statue of Jag Narayan in that place. [389] Nothing more is heard of them in Nagpur, and their rule probably came to an end with the subversion of the kingdom of Malwa in the thirteenth century. But there remain in Nagpur and in the districts of Bhandara, Balaghat and Seoni to the north and east of it a large number of Panwars, who have now developed into an ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... family, from the family to the sect or society, from the sect or society to the Church (in no denominational sense) and State, there is the ascending scale and widening circle, the successive transitions which make the worth of an individual depend on the more or less complete subversion of his individuality by a more comprehensive soul or spirit. The very modesty which suppresses, as far as possible, the personal pronoun in our addresses to others, testifies to our sense that we are hiding away some utterly insignificant and unworthy thing; a thing that has no business even to ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... shown how, throughout all the territories formerly included within the limits of the Roman Empire, a large amount of Roman legal doctrines and forms of procedure continued to be operative after the Empire's subversion. The revival of the study of the Roman law, as embodied in the compilations of Justinian, by the doctors of the school of Bologna, augmented and systematized these remnants of Roman jurisprudence, and extended their application to countries which (like great part of Germany) had never been subjected ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... by you. I have now opened my eyes; I see that you are all scoundrels—the subversion of all government is your aim. Gentlemen, I will no longer herd among rascals in whose infamy my name and character must be included. I therefore renounce you all, gentlemen, as you deserve to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... the inquisition, he most distinctly informed her highness that the hope which still lingered in the popular mind of escaping the permanent establishment of that institution, had alone prevented the utter depopulation of the country, with entire subversion of its commercial and manufacturing industry. With regard to the edicts, he temperately but forcibly expressed the opinion that it was very hard to enforce those placards now in their rigor, when the people were exasperated, and the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... indeed their interest, who endeavour the subversion of governments, to discourage poets and historians; for the best which can happen to them, is to be forgotten. But such who, under kings, are the fathers of their country, and by a just and prudent ordering ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... come before him. But the principle of these statutes (fixing the qualifications of jurors) is, that nobody is to sit in judgment upon the acts or legislation of the king, or the government, except those whom the government itself shall select for that purpose. A more complete subversion of the essential principles of the English constitution ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... Vraibleusians were the most intellectual and the most scientific nation in the world, and that the society at her house was the most intellectual and the most scientific in Vraibleusia. She told him also that she had hoped by this season the world would have been completely regulated by mind; but that the subversion of matter was a more substantial business than she and the Committee of Management had imagined: she had no doubt, however, that in a short time mind must carry the day, because matter was mortal and mind eternal; therefore mind had the best chance. Finally, she ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... had read letters addressed to Philip, and letters written by him and by his confidential friends; and he was able to say, as a thing heard with his own ears, and seen with his own eyes, that the "Spaniards minded nothing less than the subversion of the English commonwealth." In fact, he repeated the rumours of the summer, only more circumstantially, and with fuller details. Under pretence of improving the fortifications, Philip intended to obtain command ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... and, with greater consistency than others who have at times followed his example, joins the fighting ranks of his country's enemies by way of illustrating his sincerity. His action proves to be in conflict with the elementary condition of social equilibrium. The subversion of the natural instinct is brought to the logical issues of sin and death. Domestic ties are rudely severed. The crime of treason is risked with an insolence that is fatal to the transgressor. With relentless logic does the Shakespearean drama condemn defiance ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... to have conspired against his person and state, have falsely and miserably lied. And renouncing, for the nonce, my quality as prince of the blood, which I hold, however, of God alone, I am ready to make them confess, at the sword's point, that they are cowards and rascals, themselves seeking the subversion of the state and the crown, whereof I am bound to promote the maintenance by a better title than my accusers. If there be, amongst those present, any one who has made such a report and will maintain it, let him declare as much this ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... always endeavoured and aimed at the depression and ruine of the College of Physicians, the only Corporation of that Art in England, considering rightly, that the depression of the College is their interest and rise, and that the total subversion of it will make them absolute Masters in Physic and Physicians their Servants. In Order hereunto they have constantly, both publickly and privately opposed the College in whatsoever hath been offered to setle the liberty of practice on them, their only priviledg and subsistence, though ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett

... any one [she said] whose mind was in so morbid a state as that of this excellent poet and amiable man on the subject of the present political aspect of affairs in England. He is utterly desponding. He believes the downfall of the Church and the subversion of all law and government is at hand; for in spite of all our endeavours to steer clear of politics, he slid unconsciously into the subject, and proclaimed his belief that the ruin of all that was ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley

... a description of the monkey and its antics, and a long account of a chase all over the ship, in which all the ship's company including the captain took part, to the subversion of discipline and navigation. But you see—he switches off at once to Liosha and the trivial records of the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... address surprised me so much, and none so plainly betrayed the subversion of his most important scientific views, as that which he directed against my observations on psychology and cellular physiology. A mystic dualism in his fundamental views is here revealed, which stands in the sharpest contrast to the mechanical monism ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel

... and most virtuous citizens, and numbering within its ranks the great body of the people; this party strove to withstand the impending resuscitation of the privileges and abuses of the old government, and which was to be effected only by the total subversion of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... Ibrahim's camp was present, was pronounced the 'fetwah,' that, 'In order to defend God's word and counteract the superiority of the unbelievers, the Moslems, too, would submit to subordination, and learn military manoeuvres.' The subversion of ancient privileges, then, was the fundamental basis upon which his reforms rested, and to this the destruction of the Janissaries put ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... reflecting upon his long and laborious career, which is terminating gently and by almost insensible gradations, in a manner more congenial to a philosophic mind than to an ambitious spirit. As a statesman and a politician he has survived and witnessed the ruin of his party and the subversion of those particular institutions to which he tenaciously clung, and which his prejudices or his wisdom made him think indispensable to the existence of the Constitution. As an individual his destiny has been happier, for he has preserved the strength of his body and the vigour of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... of the Capital was within a single step of the subversion of the Government and the establishment of a ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... is to exist as a power among the nations, its laws must be enforced at all hazards and at any cost. And especially should courts and juries do their whole duty, without respect to persons, when crimes are committed, tending to the subversion of the Government and the destruction of our ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... been possessed of many of the qualities necessary for so honourable and arduous an undertaking; but the reign of Buonaparte was still to continue for eighteen months longer; and he who had the resolution to attempt, had not the satisfaction of seeing, its subversion. In his way to the place of execution, being assailed by a hired mob with cries of 'Vive l'Empereur,' "yes, yes!" said the General, "cry "long live the Emperor" if you please, but you will only be happy when he is no more." He would not suffer ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... this the party which you would combine and conspire against, and to defeat which you would unite hostile elements? Is it to defeat these ideas that you would risk scenes of violence in the House, or the subversion of the constitution by the Senate of the United States? Is it to defeat this noble policy that you would longer trust a broken-down, corrupt and demoralized administration? Is it for this that you would continue in power a party that, by a long enjoyment of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... people of France that he entered the country as the ally of their sovereign, and with the purpose of visiting on Paris an "exemplary and never-to-be-forgotten vengeance . . . military execution and total subversion," and of bringing "the guilty rebels to the death they have deserved." Copies of the manifesto reached Paris on the 3rd of August, with immediate effect. To Louis the Prussian general's utterances appeared so incredible ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... Augustine", "Of Evangelical Counsels", "Of Perfection of Heart", and in other places. For this reason the princes and cities should be admonished to strive rather for the reformation of the monasteries by their legitimate superiors than for their subversion—rather for the godly improvement of the monks than that they be abolished; as their most religious ancestors, most Christian princes, have done. But if they will not believe holy and most religious fathers defending monastic vows, ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous

... when he was about twenty-three years old) may serve to show how utter was the subversion of his faith. His mind was indeed in darkness! Who could have hoped that so brilliant a day should have succeeded to the gloom of such mistrust? Yet as upon a winter's morning in November when the sun rises red through the smoke, and presently the fog spreads ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... I charge upon Mr. Hastings, that, by never taking a single step to defeat or detect the falsehood of any of those charges against him, and by punishing the authors of them, he has been guilty of such a subversion of all the principles of British government as will deserve, and will I dare say meet, your ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... represent that he must comply with the exact terms of his command, and to point out the grave consequences of his refusing. Wou Sankwei cast off his allegiance to the Manchus, and entered upon a war which aimed at the subversion of their authority. Such was the reputation of this great commander, to whose ability and military prowess the Manchus unquestionably were indebted for their conquest of the empire, that a large part of Southern China at once admitted his authority, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... subvert the general system of grammar, received from time immemorial; but to improve upon it, in its present application to our tongue. That which is excellent, may not be perfect; and amendment may be desirable, where subversion would be ruinous. Believing that no theory can better explain the principles of our language, and no contrivance afford greater facilities to the student, the writer has in general adopted those doctrines which ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Babe of Bethlehem nurtured by those who, seeing him as he is, a fair and beautiful child, welcome and worship him; but who, looking through the mists of prejudice, especially fearing through him some subversion of their power, position, or interest, cry: "Away with him! ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... having already obtained the Crimea, was intent upon the subversion of the Ottoman empire, that she might acquire Constantinople as her maritime metropolis in the sunny south. Joseph was willing to allow her to proceed unobstructed in the dismemberment of Turkey, if she would not interfere with his plans of ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... Congress will at the same time determine how far it may be expedient to provide for the event of a subversion of the Spanish authorities within the Territory in question, and an apprehended occupancy thereof by any other ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... know to be specious and without justification; but it is essential to us, as human beings, to maintain self-approval for our acts. If we cannot do this socially, by comparative standards, we do it unsocially, by subversion of those standards. Rebels are only prigs turned upside ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... doth often trouble me to thinke that in this bussines we are all to learne and none to teach; but better so, then to depend upon such teachers as M^r. Blackwell was. Such a strategeme he once made for M^r. Johnson & his people at Emden, w^ch was their subversion. But though he ther clenlily (yet unhonstly) plucked his neck out of y^e collar, yet at last his foote is caught. Hear are no letters come, y^e ship captain Argole came in is yet in y^e west parts; all y^t we hear is but his report; ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... Americans ever supposed, that one consequence of democratic principles, is, the subversion of marital power, or the confusion of the natural authorities in families. They hold, that every association must have a head, in order to accomplish its object; and that the natural head of the conjugal association is man. They do not, therefore, deny him the right ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... who possessed that class of property, and in numberless instances produced pecuniary embarrassment; while the slave owners who are proprietors of plantations have not alone lost the capital invested in their slaves, but the subversion of the ancient normal order in the colonies, but in addition thereto, they are exposed to the imminent risk of seeing their estates, buildings, and fabrics eventually reduced to no value whatever. Most assuredly the circumstances which ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... assassination or anarchism has been adverted to when we were considering the rights of aliens. In England, it is treason to imagine the death of the king. There is no constitutional reason why it should not be treason to imagine the death of the president, or perhaps even the subversion by force of organized society. Such laws have been passed in Washington, Wisconsin, ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... for inconsistency; for had he not always said in the goodness of his heart, that he would never disturb the faith of old people drawing nigh their end, because such no more possessed the needful elasticity of brain to accommodate themselves to the subversion of previous modes of feeling and thought, unavoidable to the adoption of his precious revelation. Precious he did believe it, never having himself one of those visions of infinite hope, which, were his theory once proved as true as he imagined ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Subversion" :   degradation, subvert, corruption, overthrow, debasement



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