"Downfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bay. Having little liking for girls, he quickly fraternised with Don Roberto Yorba, a young hidalgo who had recently lost his wife and had no heart for festivities, although curiosity had brought him to this ball which celebrated the downfall of his country. The two men left the ball-room,—where the handsome and resentful senoritas were preparing to avenge California with a battery of glance, a melody of tongue, and a witchery of grace that was to wreak havoc among these gallant officers,—and after exchanging amenities ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... from the entangling mass of cloth that seemed to be smothering and weighing him down, the lad presently found an opening, through which he thrust his head. Blinking rapidly as he cleared his eyes from the dust that had arisen because of the sudden downfall of the tent, the lad ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... victory over Greek philosophy, owes to this very philosophy. Christianity could no doubt have achieved the moral and social regeneration of the people without these weapons of the Greek mind; but a religion, especially in the age of the downfall of Greek and Roman philosophy, must have been armed for battle with the best, the most cultured, and the most learned classes of society, and such a battle demanded a knowledge of the weapons which had been forged in ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... is true, be acquitted; they would none of them believe him to be guilty, though they all agreed that he had probably been imprudent; but then the public shame of the trial! the disgrace which must follow such an accusation! What a downfall was here! 'Oh, Gertrude! oh, Gertrude!' sobbed Mrs. Woodward; and indeed, at that time, it did not ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... sight? Quam male conveniunt!— See, what a scornful look the peasant casts! Pem. Can kingly lions fawn on creeping ants? War. Ignoble vassal, that, like Phaeton, Aspir'st unto the guidance of the sun! Y. Mor. Their downfall is at hand, their forces down: We will not thus be fac'd and over-peer'd. K. Edw. Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer! E. Mor. Lay hands on that traitor Gaveston! Kent. Is this the duty that you ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... This he did, and the completed volume so charmed his friend and patron, Gonzalez Bravo, that he offered of his own accord to write a prologue for the work and to print it at his own expense. But in 1868 came the revolution which dethroned Isabel II, and in the confusion that followed the downfall of the ministry and the hasty withdrawal of Gonzalez Bravo to the French frontier the volume of poems was lost. This was a sad blow to Becquer, but he courageously set to work to repair the loss, and ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, is itself but a manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in the downfall ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... chief Pagan deities, there seems to be preserved an old native tradition. In the Pampangan story not only is the curse of the crow attributed to a Pagan deity, Sinukuan, but the occasion of the bird's downfall is a pestilence. There is no mention whatever of a flood, nor ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... not think for the next few moments. Is it worth while to try to avoid the fate, which is certain? Let it come. The keystone of the arch had been removed, the downfall of the whole must follow. His room was already in darkness, but he did not light a lamp. The dancing flames of the fire-place gazed out sometimes above the embers, in curiosity, as if they would know whether any living being were there: and still ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... walked beside her. He was so overjoyed at her release that he could scarcely speak; but held her hand and stroked it gently while she told him her story. It was beginning to rain, a steady, cold shower, when they reached the house, and for many days and nights thereafter the downfall continued almost incessantly. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... assembled, when the consuls proposed the consideration of the interruption experienced by the assembly of the commons, in consequence of the violence and audacity of the farmers of the revenue. They said, that "Marcus Furius Camillus, whose banishment was followed by the downfall of the city, had suffered himself to be condemned by his exasperated countrymen. That before him, the decemviri, according to whose laws they lived up to the present day, and afterwards many men of the first rank in the state, had ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... dearest Lord There's fever in your cheek. The day's distress Has worked some downfall to your shattered brain, You're ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... After the downfall of the Whig party, then, the Democratic party stood alone as a truly national party, preserving the integrity of its national organization and the bulk of its legitimate members. But the events of President Pierce's administration threatened to be its undoing. If ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... extra in at the open doors of the hansom. "Dumont's downfall!" he yelled in his shrill, childish voice. "All about the ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... The downfall of Tyler and the dispersion of the insurgents at London turned the tide of the whole revolt. In the various districts where disorders were in progress the news of that failure came as a blow to all their own hopes of success. The revolt ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... wealth, elevated them to be commanding personages in trade, politics, orthodoxy and the highest social spheres. The cropped convict, released from prison, was followed everywhere by the jeers and branding of a society which gloated over his downfall and which forever reminded him of his infamy. But the men who waded on to wealth through the muck of base practices and by means of crimes a millionfold more insidious and dangerous than the offense of the convict, were not only honored ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... What does the Iliad describe or narrate? The downfall of Troy, which was the most memorable event in the early history ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... done," says an honest Jacobin,[51130] "to alienate the immense majority of citizens from the Revolution and the Republic, even those who had contributed to the downfall of the monarchy... Instead of seeing the friends of the Revolution increase as we have advanced on the revolutionary path.... we see our ranks thinning out and the early defenders of liberty ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Wales, in a journal styled the Remembrancer, and they, in conjunction with Smollett as editor, brought out the Briton in 1762. It was but a weakly specimen of a Briton from the very first. There were many causes which contributed to its downfall. Scotchmen were regarded throughout the nation with feelings of thorough detestation, and Smollett had made for himself many bitter enemies, of men who had formerly been his friends, by his acceptance of this employment. It was the hand of a quondam friend that dealt his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... them as once our own, or considering them as naturally incident to our State of Life. It is not easy for the most artful Writer to give us an Interest in Happiness or Misery, which we think ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been made acquainted. Histories of the Downfall of Kingdoms, and Revolutions of Empires are read with great Tranquillity; the imperial Tragedy pleases common Auditors only by its Pomp of Ornament, and Grandeur of Ideas; and the Man whose Faculties have been engrossed by Business, and whose Heart never fluttered but at the Rise or Fall ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... the exacting labor of a long day, all contribute to the welcome of an opportunity for an indulgence that brings money in return. The agency of the dance-hall and the saloon has also an important place in the downfall of the tempted. Intemperance and prostitution go together, and places where they can be enjoyed are factories of vice and crime. Many so-called hotels with bar attachment are little more than houses of evil ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... III. They discovered remarkable political talent in the thirty years' war; the league of the Catholics could do nothing without them. Father Lamormain, a Jesuit, and confessor to the emperor, effected the downfall of Wallenstein, and by means of his agents, kept the jealous Bavarians in their alliance with Austria. Then burst upon them in France and the Netherlands, the hurricane of the Jansenist controversy, when Pascal's Provincial Letters scathed them, and his sentiments were even quoted (1679) ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... attending on a prince, than of jailers confining a prisoner. It was probably in such an imprisonment as this that Astyages passed the remainder of his days. The people, having been wearied with his despotic tyranny, rejoiced in his downfall, and acquiesced very readily in the milder and more equitable ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... now in the far West, where their treachery and barbarity is still a part of the story of to-day, and Johnson, in his "Wonder- Working Providence," gives one or two almost incredible details of warfare against them with a Davidic exultation over the downfall of so pestilent an enemy, that is ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the man of rank and station at one side, the courtesan with his bland smiles at the other, Lorenzo had not seen the black poniard that was to cut the cord of his downfall,—it had remained gilded. He drank copious draughts at the house of licentiousness, became infatuated with the soft music that leads the way of the unwary, until at length, he, unconsciously at it were, found himself in the midst of a clan who are forming a plot to put the black seal ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... no occasion for going round about the bush to hint what the poet himself has so unblushingly and sinfully blazoned forth in every part of his production. With him, it is quite evident that the Jupiter whose downfall has been predicted by Prometheus, means nothing more than Religion in general, that is, every human system of religious belief; and that, with the fall of this, he considers it perfectly necessary (as indeed we also believe, though with far different feelings) that every system of human government ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... to the class last mentioned, whose incomes are derived from the profits of stock invested in manufactures and commerce, that Europe chiefly owed its rise and progress after the downfall of the Roman Empire, and the long night of darkness and desolation which followed it. It was through the means of mercantile industry, and the municipal institutions to which it gave rise, that the enlightened sovereigns of Europe were enabled to curb the licence of the feudal ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... And though for humanity's sake, I ought not to BOAST of it, yet we did live to pay them for it, and often too: and in the same bloody coin which they gave us that day. And although in that fiery season of my days, and when my dear country was in danger, it was but natural for me to rejoice in the downfall of my enemies, yet I was often witness to scenes, which to this day I can never think of but with sorrow — as when, for example, after dashing upon an enemy by surprise, and cutting one half of them to pieces and chasing the rest, we ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Chesapeake, may be considered as initiating the second stage of the war, when Great Britain no longer cherished hopes of any other solution than by the sword, but still was restrained in the exercise of her power by the conflict with Napoleon. With the downfall of the latter, in April, 1814, began the third and final act, when she was more at liberty to let loose her strength, to terminate a conflict at once weakening and exasperating. It is not without significance that the treaty ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... prophets, to take them at their best, were blinded by their patriotism, blinded by it even after Carchemish and when the grasp of Babylon was sensibly closing upon Judah—even after the first captivity and when the siege of Jerusalem could only end in her downfall and destruction. Nothing proved sufficient to open such eyes to the signs ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... was promoted to positions of great honor and influence. In 1618 he was made Baron of Verulam; and, three years later, he was made Viscount of St. Albans. During much of his life, Bacon was in pecuniary straits, which was doubtless one reason of his downfall; for, in 1621, he was accused of taking bribes, a charge to which he pleaded guilty. His disgrace followed, and he passed the last years of his life in retirement. Among the distinguished names in English literature, none stands higher in his department than that of Francis ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... succeeded in compassing his defeat. Again, when Adams had decided upon some important appointment for Burr, Hamilton succeeded in defeating him. This made Burr's promotion to the vice-presidency and his own downfall the more ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... sides, no sooner learned the disaster than they turned to fly: the rout was as fatal as it was sudden. The Christian reserve, just brought into the field, poured down upon them with a simultaneous charge. Boabdil, too much engaged to be the first to learn the downfall of the sacred insignia, suddenly saw himself almost alone, with his diminished Ethiopians and ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... part of the trade of the country, held its own with the most thriving cities of the east coast, through the great advantage it derived from its easy harbour, but with the abolition of that traffic came the downfall of its prosperity; for having no back country by the exportation of whose produce it might sustain itself, it was speedily deserted by the mercantile community, and its carrying trade usurped by Providence, although the latter is situated some thirty miles higher up ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... prevent this suicide of love that our ingenious France invented boudoirs. Women could not well have Virgil's willows in the economy of our modern dwellings. On the downfall of oratories, these little cubbies ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... literary men, (more particularly of such as do not possess a gift for public speech,) and of certain literary magazines, (managed by persons of delicate habit and weak lungs,) to regard and to treat the popular lecture with a measure of contempt. For the last fifteen years the downfall of what has been popularly denominated "The Lecture System" has been confidently predicted by those who, granting them the wisdom which they assume, should have been so well acquainted with its nature and its adaptation to a permanent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... could only suppose such a state of Civic imbecility was due to the decadence of the times in which they had the misfortune to live. It was the first indication that the downfall of London, like that of Rome, and—er—other cities he could not at the ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... 1868, and it was always a great grief to her husband that she could not have lived to share his return to his native land, which took place after the downfall of Louis Napoleon in 1870. After nineteen years of exile, he returned to his country only to find it in the hands of the Prussians first, and of the Commune afterward. One of his companions on that eventful journey thus describes the ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... will also be regarded as fully established. For it will then be seen that the book describes beforehand events which took place in 70 A.D. and the years immediately preceding, partly on earth and partly in the spiritual world, and is mainly concerned with the downfall of the earthly Jerusalem and the setting up of Christ's heavenly Kingdom—the new Jerusalem. And its many mysterious symbols will be seen to have been a cipher of which the first Christians held the key, but which hid its meaning ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... which occasions a difference between the women. 5 The other wife puts Caleb into a hot oven, and he is miraculously preserved, 9 she afterwards throws him into a well, and he is again preserved; 11 his mother appeals to the Virgin against the other wife, 12 whose downfall the Virgin prophecies, 13 and who accordingly falls into the well, 14 therein fulfilling a ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... beyond where the boats lay. Ralph had scarcely time even to get his boat round before the shattered pieces of burning wood began to fall thickly round his boat, threatening in an instant to sink her, and to kill any one who might be struck. Happily no one was hurt. The downfall of the wreck ceased; still the fire in the forepart of the ship was raging on, when the bows and bowsprit rose in the air surrounded by flames which, tapering up into a vast cone of fire, suddenly disappeared as, the stern sinking first, the water swept over the remainder of this hapless ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston
... which has often come to public benefactors, and was obliged to flee from Carthage. From that time, he was a wanderer on the earth. Ever true to his hatred of Rome, however, he continued to plot for her downfall even in his exile. He went to Tyre and then to Ephesus, and tried to lead the Syrian monarch Antiochus to make successful inroads upon his old enemy. Obliged to flee in turn from Ephesus, he sought ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... extinction of animosities (trifling in themselves, but made gigantic by continued contest) easy to be reconciled by a power to which all would feel compelled to bow—yet as pregnant with important consequences, if unchecked, as those causes which led for a period to the downfall of monarchy in these realms. The evil appears, so far as regards the Metropolitan Congregations, to have originated at, and been continued from, the period of the second settlement of the Israelites in this country. To the rapid increase of numbers and wealth, during the ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown
... economy than before, in order to lay by a little money with which he could,—at some future time, re-commence his own business, which was profitable. There was still only a single shop in town, and that was the one owned by his old employer, who had, in fact, built himself up on his downfall, when he took to drinking and neglecting his business. On less than a thousand dollars Gordon did not think of commencing business. Less than that he knew would make the effort a doubtful one. This amount he expected to save in ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... shame in Thy praise. Suffer me, I beseech Thee, and give me grace to go over in my present remembrance the wanderings of my forepassed time, and to offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For what am I to myself without Thee, but a guide to mine own downfall? or what am I even at the best, but an infant sucking the milk Thou givest, and feeding upon Thee, the food that perisheth not? But what sort of man is any man, seeing he is but a man? Let now the strong and the mighty laugh at us, but let us poor ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... raven's skin on his head (bird of the storm) or painted his shield with red zigzags of lightning (1); but partly, no doubt, he had observed actual facts, or had had the knowledge of them transmitted to him—as, for instance that when rain is impending loud noises will bring about its speedy downfall, a fact we moderns have had occasion to notice on battlefields. He had observed perhaps that in a storm a specially loud clap of thunder is generally followed by a greatly increased downpour of rain. He had ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... Fernandina, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston comparatively early in the struggle. Wilmington, behind the almost impregnable bastions of Fort Fisher, and Charleston, surrounded by a cordon of defensive forts, remained the last strongholds of the Confederacy on the Atlantic coast, until the final downfall ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... popular, and fewer persons will admire it wholly; but, as thoughtful readers draw near to the end of the narrative, and anxiously hasten on past trial, temptation, and conflict, to the dreaded and yet inevitable downfall, muse mournfully over the agony and remorse that follow, and slowly close the volume upon tender forgiveness and final joy, they will be thankful for the far-seeing genius which, by this gradual process ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... render her a wider and steadier market for the products of the latter and of Europe than she has ever yet been. The South will soon realize that the death of Slavery has awakened her to a new and nobler life—that what she at first regarded as a great calamity and a downfall, was in truth her beneficent renovation and her chief blessing. So shall North and South, at length comprehending and appreciating each other, walk hand in hand along their common pathway to an exalted and benignant destiny, admonished to mutual forbearance and deference by mournful yet proud ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 1792-3, as the recognized opponent of the party in power. It would be beside the purpose to attempt to enumerate the points in which the natural antagonism of the federalists and the republicans came to the surface during the decade of contest which ended in the downfall of the federal party in 1800-1. In all of them, in the struggles over the establishment of the Bank of the United States and the assumption of the State debts, in the respective sympathy for France and Great Britain, in the strong federalist legislation forced ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... latter and two surgeons who had driven to the scene in a box wagon. It is evident, too, that great secrecy had been observed in the plan and its execution and that, until sometime after the last act, Lincoln knew nothing of the later developments in the drama of Davis's downfall. For the rest of the deplorable scene the historian must content himself with the naked details in the diary of a puritan pioneer. They are, at least, direct and derive a certain vividness from their haste to be done with it as a proceeding of which ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... great convocation of nobles, prelates, and knights, and seized the royal regalia and the treasures of her vanquished foe. All would have gone well with her had not good fortune turned her brain. Pride and a haughty spirit led to her hasty downfall. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the last tribute to a great and noble soul that was willing to die for me. The victim of a vicious system, I have wandered over the world, working night and day to amass a fortune and carry out my plan. Now I have returned to destroy that system, to precipitate its downfall, to hurl it into the abyss toward which it is senselessly rushing, even though I may have to shed oceans of tears and blood. It has condemned itself, it stands condemned, and I don't want to die before I have seen it in fragments at the ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... simply told my parents the origin of my strange friendship with Pugatchef that, not only were they not uneasy, but it even made them laugh heartily. My father could not believe it possible that I should be mixed up in a disgraceful revolt, of which the object was the downfall of the throne and the extermination of the race of "boyars." He cross-examined Saveliitch sharply, and my retainer confessed that I had been the guest of Pugatchef, and that the robber had certainly behaved generously towards me. But at the same time he solemnly ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... occurred since I saw you. The former favorite mistress of 826 B, who was displaced by Frederika, is a French girl, Celestine d'Aublay. She resented her downfall bitterly, and she hates Frederika with the characteristic vehemence of her race. She learned from the talk of the servants that a new victim—Estella—had been brought into the house, a girl of great beauty; and that Frederika was ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... could, and that this I could count upon. He kept his word absolutely. He never became especially favorable to my nomination; and most of his close friends became bitterly opposed to me and used every effort to persuade him to try to bring about my downfall. Most men in his position would have been tempted to try to make capital at my expense by antagonizing me and discrediting me so as to make my policies fail, just for the sake of making them fail. Senator ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... noble one, and worthy of her who has been styled the Old Queen of the water! May thou sink, if thou dost sink, amidst blood and flame, with a mighty noise, causing more than one nation to participate in thy downfall! Of all fates, may it please the Lord to preserve thee from a disgraceful and a slow decay; becoming ere extinct a scorn and a mockery for those self-same foes who now, though they envy and abhor thee, still fear thee, nay, even against their will, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... on the whole to accord best with the observed phenomena. We have already mentioned that the spots are generally accompanied by faculae and eruptive prominences in their immediate neighbourhood, but whether these eruptions are caused by the downfall of the vapour which makes the photospheric matter "splash up" in the vicinity, or whether the eruptions come first, and by diminishing the upward pressure from below form a "sink," into which overlying cooler vapour descends, are problems as to ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... lie in a bed of rushes which the waves of Jordan have washed against a bleaching sycamore. Here, while she waiteth death, the serpent that hath wrought her downfall doth circle her though she ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... beer-tap was the cause of her downfall. A saucer used to be placed underneath it to catch the drippings. One day the cat, coming in thirsty, and finding nothing else to drink, lapped up a little, liked it, and lapped a little more, went away for half an hour, and came back and finished the saucerful. ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... intellectual, accomplished and patriotic, who limit their knowledge of these fundamental points to a zeal for a clique, and the whole of whose eloquence on great national questions is bounded by a few heartfelt wishes for the downfall ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... them; and therefore it is that so many of these people are cold and sickly in divine things. But the Lord hath had mercy on thee, and will take away from thee the mammon whereby thou hast been deceived; and for thy sake I rejoice in thy coming downfall'— ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... is this true that the socialist grieves to see so many people living to-day without working; receiving wealth out of all proportion to their usefulness. If this was common to all of us it would mean the downfall of civilization. As we live now a great many people work too hard, too long, under unsanitary conditions, a sort of living sacrifice to the rest of the world; and a few people do visibly and ostentatiously consume and waste the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... cooking utensil of any kind in the cabin. So these two poor heathen, against my expostulations—somewhat faint, I admit, for the thought of hot coffee took away some of my common sense—went out on the deck and waded forward, waist-deep in the water, muddy now, from the downfall of ashes. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... a recent English essay ("On the Criminal Code of the Jews") to find how the typical Israel regarded games of chance. As if something of the old blessed "The Lord is our King," staid by them, even in the days of their downfall. The ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... nobles had long been jealous of Tycho's fame and reputation, and on the death of the King an opportunity was afforded them of intriguing with the object of accomplishing his downfall. Several false accusations were brought against him, and the Court party made the impoverished state of the Treasury an excuse for depriving him of his pension and emoluments granted ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... be haunted with awful visions like those that visited the more plastic conscience of Charles IX after St. Bartholomew; but at least it will be some compensation to picture them rending the air with lamentations over their own downfall and hurling curses at ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... cession to her of Cyprus. Egypt, despite the jealousy of France, has passed under English control. The importance of that position to India, understood by Napoleon and Nelson, led the latter at once to send an officer overland to Bombay with the news of the battle of the Nile and the downfall of Bonaparte's hopes. Even now, the jealousy with which England views the advance of Russia in Central Asia is the result of those days in which her sea power and resources triumphed over the weakness of D'Ache and the genius of Suffren, and wrenched the peninsula of India from the ambition ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... cottage of Mrs Forbes, for there was work to be sent home early on the morrow, and neither lateness nor weariness might suspend their anxious toil. Lame Sally and her mother had been talking over, what was in everyone's mouth and thoughts, the sad downfall of the Rothwells. They saw God's hand in it, but they did not rejoice; they had found their Saviour true to His word, and enjoyed a peace in casting their care on Him which they knew all the wealth of the world could ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... And when a man checks all a woman's finer sentiments towards him by marrying her, it is only natural that it should find a vent somewhere. However, she probably does not know of my downfall since father's death. I hardly think she would have cared to do it had she known that. (I am assuming that it is Ethelberta—Mrs. Petherwin—who sends it: of course I am not sure.) We must remember that when I knew her I was a gentleman at ease, who had not the least notion that ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... one side the portraits of the kings and queens of the Bourbon decadence; heads of monarchs, or princes, crushed under their white wigs; sharp feminine eyes, bloodless faces, with their hair combed in the form of a tower. The two great painters had coincided in their lives with the moral downfall of two dynasties. In the Hall of Velasquez the thin, bony, fair-haired kings, of monastic grace and anaemic pallor, with their protruding under-jaws, and in their eyes an expression of doubt and fear for the salvation of their souls. Here, the corpulent, ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... irredeemably eighteen-sixty. I 've only waited for this blessed day of liberty to cut adrift from the Baronessa. And the pleasure will be mutual, I promise you. She will enjoy a peace and a calm that she has n't known for ages. Ouf! I feel like Europe after the downfall of Napoleon." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... could influence. This experience deepened my dislike of everything approaching a classical tone, in which sentiment I found myself in complete accord with honest Pohlenz, who sighed good-naturedly over the downfall of the good ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... brother's landgravate Is somewhat to you, surely—and your smiles Are worth gold pieces in a court intrigue. For her, on her own principles, a downfall Is a chastening ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... room, the discharged employee determined to find out the cause of his downfall. He took the alarm-clock to pieces, and discovered a dead ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... Asquith's services to the State as Prime Minister for the first two and a half years of the War will not be founded on the Press Campaign which has helped to secure his downfall. But, as one of the most bitterly and unjustly assailed ex-Ministers has said, "personal reputations must wait till the end of the War." Meanwhile, we have a Premier who, whatever his faults, cannot be charged ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... vain, upstart young monkey from my mood of self-depreciation, I must needs hold it for certain that all was within my grasp, and that the Lady Ysolinde expected as much of me, which thing would have wrought my downfall. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... agitated the trouble, and he fully expected Langford to take him into his confidence should any aggressive movement be contemplated. He had even expected to be allowed to plan the details of the scheme which would have as its object the downfall of the nester, for thus he hoped to satisfy his personal vengeance against ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... no glad season of sunshine and flowers, only a few brief weeks of damp and cloudy weather, for even on fine days the sun looms through a curtain of mist. Rainy weather prevails, and the leaky huts are often flooded for days together by an incessant downfall. Swarms of mosquitoes and sand flies are added to other miseries, for there is no protection against these pests by night or day, save by means of dimokuris, a bundle of leaves, moss, and damp pine logs which is ignited near a hut and envelops it ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... coat-of-arms, azure with a fesse,—wavy of gold—all thrown together as by a kaleidoscope gone mad. Each of these scraps had once a meaning: so this church held meanings, too long ignored by him, partly intelligible yet, soon to be mixed inextricably in a common downfall. For Clement Vyell might be wise in the history of architecture, but his eye had not read the one plain warning which stared a common workman in the face—that the days of this building were surely ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... France with a colony sent out by Louis XIV. The grandson of this Jacques is the present Gustav Toutant Beauregard. At the early age of eleven years he was taken to New York and placed under a private tutor, an exile from France, and who had fled the Empire on the downfall of Napoleon. At sixteen he entered West Point as a cadet, and graduated July 1st, 1838, being second in a class of forty-five. He entered the service of the United States as Second Lieutenant of Engineers. He served with distinction through ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... bride's cake was flung from a window of the second story upon the heads of the crowd congregated in the street below; and the divination, I was told, consists in observing the fate which attends its downfall. If it reach the ground in safety, without being broken, the omen is a most unfavourable one. If on the other hand, the plate be shattered to pieces (and the more the better), the auspices are ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... being talked about. Herzog was boldly placing his foot on the summit whereon the five or six demigods, who ruled the stock market, were firmly placed. The audacious encroachments of this newcomer had vexed these formidable potentates, and already they had decided secretly his downfall because he would not let them ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... Paramore is that he has interposed a secondary and false conscience between himself and the facts. When his disease is disproved, instead of seeing the escape of a human being who thought he was going to die of it, Paramore sees the downfall of a kind of flag or cause. This is the whole contention of The Quintessence of Ibsenism, put better than the book puts it; it is a really sharp exposition of the dangers of "idealism," the sacrifice of people to principles, and Shaw is ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... and other men's learning, and things he don't make for himself.' Heard any man ever the like o' that? But just you bide till I've done. 'Can a boy learn to do without drink?' I wants to know—for beer's been my downfall. 'He can,' says thicky man. 'And love?' I says; and 'No,' says he straight, 'he cannot. But he can learn the way of it; and that 'ull teach him to do wi'out lust.' 'Tis a wise thought, the like of that, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... as she spoke, doing her best to efface the memory of her downfall by sitting very erect, elbows down, head well up, and taking the motion of the pony as Barkis cantered along as easily as ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... loyal Tribune again sounded the note of deep alarm: "These are times that try men's souls! The peril of our country's overthrow is great and imminent. The triumph of the rebels distinctly and unmistakably involves the downfall of ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... one of desperate gloom for Cicero. The downfall of the old constitution had overwhelmed him with sorrow, and his brief outburst of joy over Caesar's death had been quickly succeeded by disgust and alarm at the proceedings of Antonius. The deep wound ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to tell Paul and his friends to whose kind attention they owed this unexpected downfall. Ted Slavin and his backers had not been idle while the new patrol was being organized in the home of Nuthin'. They had fastened a stout rope across the lower step, and succeeded in tripping ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... general officers, coupled with all the flummery of the Protocole, all the pomp and display observed whenever he stirred from the Palace of the Elysee, had virtually turned his head. He was in the hands of those military men who opposed revision, and he shielded them because their downfall would mean his own. He was bent on the hushing-up course lest his Presidency should become synonymous with a great judicial crime; he feared that he might be forced to resign even before his term of office was over, or, at all events, that he might have to abandon ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... again. The result was, that without quite giving up the allowance question, Madame Mantalini, postponed its further consideration; and Ralph saw, clearly enough, that Mr Mantalini had gained a fresh lease of his easy life, and that, for some time longer at all events, his degradation and downfall were postponed. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... of nonrecognition were conspicuously illustrated by President Woodrow Wilson when he refused, early in 1913, to recognize Provisional President Huerta as the de facto government of Mexico, thereby contributing materially to Huerta's downfall the year following. At the same time Wilson announced a general policy of nonrecognition in the case of any government founded on acts of violence; and while he observed this rule with considerable discretion, he consistently refused to recognize the Union of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... drunkenness she used the story of her daughter's downfall with telling effect upon the police justices. Finally one of them said to her, peering down over his spectacles: "Mary, the records of this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-two daughters who have been ruined. The case is unparalleled ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... came the answer, as the chauffeur measured with hard, wise eyes the crumbling edge of the road and the downfall of the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... death fell as a great shock. In the unspeakable calamity the country lost sight of the great national successes of the past week; and thus it came to pass that there was never any organized celebration in the North over the downfall of the rebellion. It was unquestionably best that it should be so. Lincoln himself would not have had it otherwise, for he hated the arrogance of triumph. As it was, the South could take no offense at a grief so genuine; and the people of that section even shared, to a certain extent, in the ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... acceptance of the whole system that has been so easily and unhesitatingly swallowed; and the period of scepticism, or no-belief, with its attendant misery, commences—for although Dagon has been but little honoured in the time of his strength, in his downfall he is much regretted. Then comes that long, weary groping after some firm, reliable basis of belief: but heaven and earth appear for the time to conspire against the seeker; an intellectual flood has drowned out the old order of things; not even a mountain peak appears in the wide waste ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... Mount. It may be that Mr. Chesterton's sight is erratic, and that what he took to be the sacred thorn was really a Upas-tree. But in a sense that does not matter. He is entitled to his own fable, if he tells it honestly and beautifully; and it is as a tragic fable or romance of the downfall of liberty in England that one reads his History. He himself contends in the last chapter of the book that the crisis in English history came "with the fall of Richard II, following on his failures to use mediaeval despotism in the interests ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... in regular working order, constant inequalities of wealth and consequent changes in the relative positions of individuals were sure to ensue. In practice if not in theory, might makes right in such a state of society. The weaker goes to the wall, and the stronger gains in strength by his downfall. Besides, it was long before the roving and predatory instinct of the barbarian was moderated; and his weaker neighbor was the natural prey of the more powerful landholder, an example not unfrequently set by the ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... enemy, and she had no idea of sparing him. She knew also that he had been courteous enough to send a man each day to inquire after Valmond, but that was not to the point; he was torturing her, he had prophesied the downfall of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the first water received a sad downfall when we were first asked by a kind friend, what the deuce we came home for? We had a good many becauses ready, but he overturned them altogether; so we had resort to the usual resource of men in such a position: we said, "There was a barrier of ice across Wellington Channel in 1850." Our friend ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... were covered up near the fire, were soon placed upon the table, by the servant, and our plain, old-fashioned mother (who was no woman for nonsense) very unceremoniously told me to "pour out the coffee." What a downfall for ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... companions rode at full speed over places where I should have picked my way carefully at a foot's pace; and my horse followed them, galloping and stopping short at their pleasure, and I successfully kept my seat, though not without occasional fears of an ignominious downfall. I even wish that you could see me in my Rob Roy riding dress, with leather belt and pouch, a lei of the orange seeds of the pandanus round my throat, jingling Mexican spurs, blue saddle blanket, and Rob Roy blanket strapped ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... tongues did not, 'What news? Who is gone? How will it affect me?' And if two or three spoke together, they dwelt rather on the names of those who were safe than dared to hint at those likely, in their opinion, to go; for idle breath may, at such times, cause the downfall of some who might otherwise weather the storm; and one going down drags many after. 'Thornton is safe,' say they. 'His business is large—extending every year; but such a head as he has, and so prudent with all his daring!' Then one man draws another aside, and walks a little apart, and, with ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... words of the young prince—for Charles Stuart, though despicable as a king, was ever loving and loyal as a friend—were as oil upon the troubled waters. The ruffled temper of the ambassador of Spain—who in after years really did work Raleigh's downfall and death—gave place to courtly bows, and the King's quick anger melted away before the dearly loved voice of ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... meant, of course, that I was to die by some exquisite refinement of torture, the nature of which would probably be too dreadful for description. For I very shrewdly suspected that Gouroo and Mafuta were equally interested in my downfall—might, indeed, have conspired in some mysterious manner to bring it about—and would probably take care that it should be as complete and disastrous as savage vindictiveness ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the Spanish conquests, 6. Conversion by the sword, 7. Rapid success and sudden downfall of missions in Florida, 9. The like story in New Mexico, 12, and in ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... at first they succeeded beyond all my hopes. Assisted by an Irishman not less skilful than myself, and who, like me, was actuated by a noble patriotism, desiring even more fervently than I did the downfall of England, I was soon enabled to counterfeit the notes of the Bank with such perfection that it was even difficult for us to distinguish those which came from our own press from the genuine paper. I was at the very point of a triumph; all my preparations were made for inundating England with ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... Holland, who sat with the States; and that the third of September was pitched on for the attempt, as being found by Lilly's Almanack, and a scheme erected for that purpose, to be a lucky day, a planet then ruling which prognosticated the downfall of Monarchy. The evidence against these persons was very full and clear, and they were accordingly found guilty of High Treason." See November ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... reason to be thankful for her humiliation than she could suspect, with her narrow knowledge of the world. Perhaps that sudden downfall of her fancied queenship was needed, to shut her out, once and for all, from that downward path of spiritual intoxication, followed by spiritual knavery, which, as has been hinted, was ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... sovereigns, for the men who discovered them were British and naturally carried the names of their rulers to plant as banners wherever they penetrated. These lakes are not in Egypt, but far beyond, in a region where at one season of the year there is a terrific downfall of rain; this swells them up and makes them burst forth from every outlet in a tremendous flood. The Nile carries off most of this water, and some other rivers, which flow into it up there, bring down masses of water too, and all this rushes ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... conversation, but the fall of Peter John. And when at last they sought their beds it was with the conviction that Peter John himself would seek them out within a day or two and try to explain how it was that his downfall had occurred. This, they thought, would give them the opportunity they desired, and if the faculty did not discover the matter and take action of their own then they might be able to say or do something to recall Peter John ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... lords of the land, and felt an innate propensity to join in resistance to the government by which their supremacy had been overturned. A great proportion of the more modern families, dating from the downfall of the Dutch government in 1664, were English and Scotch, and among these were many loyal adherents to the crown. Then there was a mixture of the whole, produced by the intermarriages of upwards of a century, which partook of every shade of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... it. I thought as he does when I was a boy, before reason came. I would not have killed even a monk; but let me speak to him." Then, turning toward Cinq-Mars, "Listen: when men conspire, they seek the death or at least the downfall of some one, eh?" ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... for reducing the French National Debt, similar in folly and in downfall to the South ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... highest signs of favour foreshow, in Eastern tales and in Eastern life, an approaching downfall of the heaviest; they are so great that they arouse general jealousy. Many of us have seen ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... scheming, Frederick, poor dupe, madly fuming, while the lights blaze at the palace windows, and the trumpets sound out as the feast proceeds within. He rages, and a theme (f) quoted is abruptly transformed into (g) as he bitterly casts upon Ortrud the blame for their downfall. The vocal parts are neither recitative nor true song; the orchestral tide is developed in much the same symphonic style as in Tannhaeuser. We are still no nearer to the perfect blending of the orchestral stream and the vocal parts that we get in Tristan ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... first ministry had consisted of Whigs and the more moderate Tories; but as she fell away from the Marlboroughs, she threw herself into the hands of the Tories, who had determined, and now achieved, the downfall of Marlborough. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... of his division were still in Nice, when we heard of the events of the 18th Brumaire, the overthrow of the Directorate and the establishment of the Consulate. My father had too much contempt for the Directorate to regret its downfall, but he feared that, intoxicated by power, General Bonaparte, after re-establishing order in France, would not restrict himself to the modest title of consul, and he predicted to us that in a short time he would aim to become king. My father ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... light. She was still his love, his life; she was still true to herself, to the beautiful ideal he had enthroned in his heart of hearts. Poor darling! she would suffer; but he must escape. Loving him as deeply, as devotedly as ever, she yet would give him up, rather than that he should share in the downfall of her house. Ah! she did not know him. She could be great; but so also could he. Charlotte should see that her love was no light thing for any man to relinquish: she would find that it weighed heavier in the balance than riches, than fame; ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... in the old time, by aid of some Immortal, Raised up the stately fabric, our wealth of long-ago: But I tremble lest it totter down, and ruin porch and portal, And the whirling dust of downfall rise above ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Benton in the principles involved in this contest, had received nothing at his hands, throughout his long career, but defeat and total exclusion from all offices and honors, State and National. This class of politicians were too glad of the prospective division of his party and the downfall of his power, to be willing to re-assert their principles through a support of Benton. The loyal Union sentiments of the State in this way failed to be united, and a majority was elected to the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... banishment, and to pass many of the best years of his life abroad, can be fit, on the day on which he returns to his native land, to be at the head of the government. Clarendon was no exception to this rule. He had left England with a mind heated by a fierce conflict which had ended in the downfall of his party and of his own fortunes. From 1646 to 1660 he had lived beyond sea, looking on all that passed at home from a great distance, and through a false medium. His notions of public affairs were necessarily derived from the reports ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... boy's room. He did not know who they were; and they said little, and soon went away. They were, however, sufficiently impressed with what they saw to take some measures for Louis's relief. They had been sent by the Convention, on the downfall and death of the great revolutionary leader, Robespierre, to see what was the state of things at the Temple; and in consequence of their report, a person named Laurent was appointed to ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... lie at the root of national character, and so inculcate these principles that they will pervade the nation and make it a spiritual solidarity, and unite the best minds in their service, and so control those passionate and turbulent elements which are the cause of the downfall and wreckage of nations by internal dissensions. I desire as much as any one to preserve our national identity, and to make it worthy of preservation, and this can only be done by the domination of some inspiring ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... Kisaki; and Iyeyasu, alluding forcibly to excess in this respect as teterrima belli causa, laid down that the princes might have eight, high officers five, and ordinary Samurai two handmaids. "In the olden times," he writes, "the downfall of castles and the overthrow of kingdoms all proceeded from this alone. Why is not the indulgence of ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... following year found Edward a prisoner at Kenilworth, while his wife, who had successfully intrigued with Roger Mortimer, leader of the Barons, observed the Christmas festivities with her son at Wallingford, glad at the downfall of her husband. Edward was an irresolute and weak-minded king. He displayed singular incapacity for government, wasting almost all his time in frivolous amusements. The chief characteristics of his reign were defeat and disgrace abroad, and misrule ending in misery ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Eulogiums on murder, robbery, and theft were read with delight in the histories of Freney the Robber, and the Irish Rogues and Rapparees; ridicule of the Word of God, and hatred to the Protestant religion, in a book called Ward's Cantos, written in Hudi-brastic verse; the downfall of the Protestant Establishment, and the exaltation of the Romish Church, in Columbkill's Prophecy, and latterly in that of Pastorini. Gross superstitions, political and religious ballads of the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... are none the less follies. The events of yesterday were part of that general plan on which the world was first formed and on which it may have been conducted through all the hundreds of centuries which puzzle Agassiz and frighten the theologists. The downfall of an empire and the picking up of a basket of chips by a ragged child in a ship-yard, may each have equally formed part of it, and each been equally impossible to avert. Human will seemed to move each event, and human responsibility certainly attached to each; but the event ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... army, who had believed her word without a doubt and taken her success for granted. If they had been wavering before, which seems possible—for they must have been, to a considerable extent, new levies, the campaigners of the Loire having accomplished their period of feudal service,—this sudden downfall must have strengthened every doubt and damped every enthusiasm. The Maid of whom such wonderful tales had been told, she who had been the angel of triumph, the irresistible, before whom the English fled, and the very walls fell down—was she after all only a sorceress, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... depriving them of the means of subsistence, hindered them from continuing the species. Barbarism sprang up again, in a hideous form, from this mass of corruption, and spread like a devouring leprosy over the depopulated provinces. The wise foresaw the downfall of the empire, but could devise no remedy. What could they think indeed? To save this old society it would have been necessary to change the objects of public esteem and veneration, and to abolish ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... forest to the distant shining of the padlocked gates of Eden. He was farther than ever from the garden now with its tranquil blessedness. If only he hadn't learnt to steal! Stealing had been the cause of his downfall—first the forbidden fruit and then the hyena's coat. If he had been less enterprising and more obedient, he would still have been the friend of God. After a wakeful night he crept to the entrance to discover that the worst thing of all ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... "The Valkyrie" is tragedy—chiefly Wotan's tragedy (the relinquishing first of Siegmund, and his hope in Siegmund, then of Bruennhilde)—but incidentally the tragedy of Siegmund's life and his death, of Siegmund's loneliness and of Bruennhilde's downfall; and at least one of the scenic effects—the fire at the end—was thrown in to relieve the pervading gloom, and in obedience to Wagner's acute sense of the wild beauty of the old legend, rather than to illustrate and assist the drama. It is sheer spectacle, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... her weaknesses. He realised that the Kaiser had been our enemy during all the years he had been pretending to be our friend. He had been spending vast sums of money on men and women who were willing to do the dirtiest kind of work, in order that he might cause our downfall. ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... he had encouraged the chaplain to persevere, by exclaiming, "out of all question, my dear sir"—though he was absolutely ignorant that the other had just advanced a downright scientific heresy. At this critical moment a cry from Little Smash, that almost equalled a downfall of crockery in its clamour, drew every eye ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the two great antagonists was Egypt. Psamatik I., who was advanced in years at the time of Assyria's downfall,[14198] died about B.C. 610, and was succeeded by a son still in the full vigour of life, the brave and enterprising Neco. Neco, in B.C. 608, having made all due preparations, led a great expedition into Palestine,[14199] with the object of bringing under his dominion the entire tract between ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... of their own kindred, before turning their arms against their Algonquin neighbors. The Delawares (Lenni Lenape, or Original Men) were subjugated almost coincidently with the Hurons; and the same year which brought the downfall of the Andastes witnessed the expulsion of the Shawnees from the valley of the Ohio. Re-enforced in 1712 by the Tuscaroras, a warlike tribe from the South, the Five Nations (now become the Six Nations) carried their conquests east and west, north and south. The tribes confronting ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... secrets of our country's history which are now lost forever were scattered to the winds. The old ancestral portraits whose fixed countenances looked down on the wild scene were rent from the walls. The mob triumphed in their downfall and destruction, as if these pictures of Hutchinson's forefathers had committed the same offenses as their descendants. A tall looking-glass which had hitherto presented a reflection of the enraged and drunken multitude was now smashed into a thousand fragments. We gladly dismiss ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... soul of man? The eternal conflict in the soul of man between chaos, whence it came, and harmony, whither it strives irresistibly. Falsehood, as the offspring of chaos, and Truth, as the child of harmony. The triumph of truth and the downfall of falsehood. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... and natives irredeemably weakened? And must he,—Burgers,—go down to posterity as a Dutchman who tried to forward the interests of the English party? No, doubtless the Annexation was wrong; but it has done good, for it has brought about the downfall of the English: and we will end the argument in the very words of his last public utterance, with which he ends his statement: "South Africa gained more from this, and has made a larger step forward in the march of freedom than most ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... task, "it leaves something untouched, which is better than these,—I mean our feelings, Miss Whittaker." And the Major paused until he had caught Gertrude's eyes, when, having engaged them with his own, he proceeded. "I think they are the stronger for the downfall of so much else, and, upon my soul, I think it's in them we ought to take refuge. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... too successful, for it nearly brought about the downfall of the rider. When those red eyes straining for death were suddenly shrouded in unexpected darkness the amazed horse propped on its forefeet and came to so dead a stop that Nigel was shot forward on to its neck and hardly held himself by his hair-entwined hand. Ere he had slid back into ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Bothwell. By my honour, I've done for him! He hath carried off my sword in his body. Was it Patrick Hume, saidst thou? Then is he dead as my grandmother, and no more shall he follow after my betrothed, or threaten thee with the downfall of the Newmilne dam-dike. All I sorrow for is my good sword, which, but for that accursed loop, I might have redrawn from his vile carcass, and thus saved my property at the same time that I gave the carrion crows of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... last. "I'll do it. But it ain't right, and you'll be sorry when you see it fall." He hurriedly rearranged the block structure, adding to the tremulously soaring tower on the left side. True to his prediction, it fell with a crash, destroying other parts of the edifice in its downfall. The boy turned on his unseen companion a face in which triumph and disgust were equally blended. "There, now!" he taunted; "didn't I tell you so, Lily Bell? But you never will b'lieve what I say—jes ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... greatest achievements of British colonial extension. The disgrace of Warren Hastings was a great event in English history, but it made no impression on the people in India. They only knew him as one of the greatest of conquerors and their deliverer. Philip Francis, who brought about Hastings' downfall, so far from supplanting him, is remembered now only as the probable author of the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... against the Wesleyans, and expressing his fears that their efforts to disparage him would be renewed on their departure, and the flight of the pope from Rome, of which they had heard, represented as the downfall of the Catholic Church. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Now, every private letter that I have received from Germany, and every printed circular, pamphlet, or book on the war which has come to me from German sources insists on the view that, for Germany, it is a question between world empire or utter downfall. There is no sense or reason in this view, but the German philosophers, historians, and statesmen are all maintaining it at ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... to ruin driven. Scott says: "The downfall of the Douglases of the house of Angus, during the reign of James V., is the event alluded to in the text. The Earl of Angus, it will be remembered, had married the queen dowager, and availed himself of the right which he thus acquired, as well as of his extensive power, to retain the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... musing assumed a coherence. To-morrow, at this time, he might be either a hunted murderer or a victim himself of Storch's desperation. In any case, he would be furnishing the text for many a newspaper sermon. How eagerly they would trace his downfall, sniffing out the salacious bits for the furtive enjoyment of the chemically pure! For there would be salacious bits. Had he not spent the preceding night in the company of a fallen woman? One by one the facts would be brought out, added to and ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... realized which she had felt when first she had heard Count Ville-Handry speak of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Company. But never, oh, never! would she have imagined so sudden a downfall. ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... nothing more was heard of the Avars in the Balkan peninsula, though their power was only finally crushed by Charlemagne in 799. In Russia their downfall became proverbial, being crystallized in the saying, 'they perished like Avars'. The Slavs, on the other hand, remained. Throughout these stormy times their penetration of the Balkan peninsula had been peacefully if unostentatiously proceeding; by the middle of ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... trinkets the possession of which she could not satisfactorily explain. It was discovered that she was lying. It was about this time that the girl told her friends that she had been immoral, and accused a man for whom she had worked of being responsible for her downfall. She had also been flirting with a married man who had been talking to her about eloping with him. It was learned that she stayed all one night at a downtown hotel, but probably alone. Further investigation showed she had stolen a considerable sum ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... his equals, he knew nothing. So, of sheer necessity, all the personal interest of his last years had been centered in the career of his banished son.—And ah! How he had suffered through that son! No other blow devised by man or God could have touched him save just the disgrace and downfall of Ivan in Petersburg. During the months immediately following the court-martial, the palace in Konnaia Square had been the abode of a fiend incarnate. Servants slunk from room to room in terror of their very lives; and the Governor-General, an Imperial Highness, had looked forward with dire ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... I excused myself—not on the plea that I should be useless. This method of mine would have been well enough, from any but the moral standpoint, had not Nemesis, taking her stand on that point, sometimes ordained that a Gaul should be sprung on me. It was not well with me then. It was downfall and disaster. ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... genial rule and almost an excess of liberty and privileges, Bond artifice could succeed in conjuring up contrary notions, and to poison them into the monstrous belief that they, the Boers, were an oppressed people, whose downfall was designed by rapacious England, and that no other remedy existed for preserving independence, religion and homes than to expel that wicked English people from African soil. This is, then, what Bond artifice effected in the absence of actual ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... the South played in the political life of the country. But for a generation past the sense of a separate interest of the South had been growing still more vigorously. The political predominance of the South had continued, but under a standing menace of downfall as the North grew more populous and the patriotism which it at first encouraged had become perverted into an arrogantly unconscious feeling that the Union was an excellent thing on condition that it was subservient to the South. The common interest ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... The man who built it was probably a scholar but he was almost certainly a Calvinist. He habited himself in black and was served by serving maids, instead of slaves in livery. If a woman was not flat-chested and forlorn, he was prone to regard her as the devil masquerading for the downfall of man—and no doubt with some justice, too. Night and morning he presided at family prayers, the purpose of which was to impress upon his family and servants that to have a good time was wicked, and that to be gay in this life meant hell-fire and ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... this people was destined to attain to the higher enjoyment of life. The country, trembling under the agitation of the slave question, was steadily seeking a condition of equilibrium which could be stable only in the complete downfall of slavery. Unknown to them, yet existing, the great question of the day was gradually being solved; and in its solution was working out the salvation of an enslaved people. Well did that noblest of women, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, sing a ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... apparent in the non-Conference offices. Hardly a day passed which failed to bring to the Guardian the resignation of one or more of its agents, with none to take their places except the vultures, many of whom Mr. Gunterson remembered to have assisted in accelerating the downfall of some of the other underwriting institutions with which he had been connected. With a chill of dismay he read of what a splendid opening awaited the Guardian in the general agency of Henry Trafalgar and Company of Memphis, or ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... another dismal day, such a one as would be fitting for a dark deed of border justice. A cold, drizzly rain blew from the northwest. Jonathan wrapped a piece of oil-skin around his rifle-breech, and faced the downfall. Soon he was wet to the skin. He kept on, but his free stride had shortened. Even upon his iron muscles this soggy, sticky ground ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... impaired, hung on chances as uncertain as those in a game of roulette? What nonsense! The failure of a great financial company had brought about a crisis on the Bourse. The news of the inability of Wermant, the 'agent de change', to meet his engagements, had completed the downfall of M. de Nailles. Not only death, but ruin, had entered that house, where, a few hours before, luxury and ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... purchased in England and armed at a barren island near Madeira. Thence she went to Australia, and cruising northward in the Pacific to Bering Strait, destroyed the China-bound clippers and the whaling fleet. At last, hearing of the downfall of the Confederacy, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... guard, Sim," said Slane, spitting out the dust as he rose. Then raising his voice - "Come an' take him on. I've bruk 'is leg." This was not strictly true, for the Private had accomplished his own downfall, since it is the special merit of that leg-guard that the harder the kick ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... reason for you to enter such a circle; no excuse for it; no duty urges you; no patriotism incites you to such self-sacrifice; no memory of wrong done to your nearest and dearest inspires you to dedicate your life to aiding—if only a little, in the downfall and destruction of the nation and the people who ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... treated in such fashion. How would Peggy like it if her sleeve came off altogether in the course of the evening? There would be humiliation! Better a thousand times a trifling discomfort than such a downfall ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... never finished. The part completed comprehended only the period from the Creation to the Downfall of the Macedonian Empire —one hundred and seventy years before Christ. He tarries too long amidst the misty and mythical ages which precede the dawn of history; his speculations on the site of the original Paradise, on the Flood, &c., ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... stamp, whose fruitful activity was ever winning battles, was certain to devour the idle, impotent Seguins. In the downfall of their fortune, the dispersal of the home and family, he had carved a share for himself by securing possession of the house in the Avenue d'Antin. Seguin himself had not resided there for years, he had thought it original ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola |
