"Go to pieces" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wasn't at all rotten and unseaworthy, as they had told me, but nice and white and dry inside. I had grown fond of the ship, on which I could practice my old sailing manoeuvres. The only trouble was that the sails would go to pieces every now and then ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... have already learned that alcohol keeps meat from decaying, or going to pieces. We explain that food in the stomach must go to pieces to prepare it to make blood; when mixed with alcohol, it is preserved, and the gastric juice cannot melt or dissolve it. Thus the stomach is hindered from doing its work until it gets ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... down into the dust of the highway, and not up and out to the wider landscape? Is it worth while to put so much force of soul and spirit, brain and heart into things from which we may be summoned without a moment's notice? Is it worth while to live, and then go to pieces through the effort at living, live on day after day like a machine out of gear (held together oftentimes only by the surgeon's skill), then break down completely, give a final sigh and be hurried away to add a lot of useless ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... her, that 'inseparable sigh for her,' which Byron in one of the most human of all his very human moods, has so touchingly described. He felt that she was far too young for him, and that the boat of his shaky fortunes was not meant to carry a bright and beautiful young woman in it—a boat that might go to pieces on a rock at any moment after it had tried to put to sea; and which must, nevertheless, try to put to sea. Then again he had been irritated by paragraphs in the society papers coupling his name more or less conjecturally with that of Helena ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... ever all things to all men, and ready with quip and jest, and not a little uncertain as to truth—to which the old man shut his eyes when there was a "deal" on—had, in the end, been of no use at all, and had seemed to go to pieces just when he was most needed. His father had put it all down to Cassy Mavor, who had unsettled things since she had come to Lumley's, and being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had with an exaggerated ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... out of his belt preparatory to joining Jorgenson in the boat, thinking it would be better to go to a big talk completely unarmed. They were lying on the rail but he didn't pick them up. Four shots didn't matter. They could not matter if the world of his creation were to go to pieces. He said nothing of that to Mrs. Travers but busied himself in giving her the means to alter her personal appearance. It was then that the sea-chest in the deckhouse was opened for the first time before the interested Mrs. Travers who had followed him inside. Lingard handed to her a Malay woman's ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... expecting every moment that the vessel would sink or go to pieces, they came to the resolution of endeavouring to save themselves in the boats, of which the larger held only forty-seven men, and the smaller twenty-one. Quirini had the choice of either of the boats, and at last went with his servants, into the larger boat, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... battle was one of the heaviest Deck's battalion had ever received, and for several minutes it looked as if the four companies must go to pieces. But the gallant major rallied his forces, and the Confederates were hemmed in so closely that they could neither advance nor retreat. Sabre blows fell thick and fast, striking fire in a dozen spots at ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... lines and the smooth anchorage, Barbarossa had only to watch his enemy go to pieces in the open roadstead in trying to maintain a blockade. His officers, however, scorned such a policy, and, being appointees of the Sultan and far from subordinate in spirit to their chief, they were finally ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... Begin at the end and slice it into slips as thin as straws. After all are cut, mix them lightly together, and to prevent them sticking, keep them floured a little until you are ready to drop them into your soup which should be done shortly before dinner, for if boiled too long they will go to pieces. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... who won't stand in with his measure, while I would sooner stand in with neither. Isn't it better to face the situation now than take trouble to form the most makeshift of Cabinets, and if that doesn't go to pieces, be voted down in the House by your ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... River (hanging out that bleached rag of a sympathetic smile), the Upper River was not the Lower River, you know. (That really did seem remarkably true, and we became alarmed.) The Upper River, mind you, was terriffic. Why, those frail ribs and that impossible planking would go to pieces on the first rock—like an egshell! Of course, we were free to do as we pleased—they would not discourage us for the world. And the engine! Gracious! Such a boat would never stand the vibration of a four-horse, high-speed engine driving a fourteen-inch screw! It appeared plainly that we were ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... crumbled. There was a moment's pause, and then the whole structure keeled over, away from the boat, and with a rending and cracking of timbers, broke from its foundation. Over and over it heeled, and it looked as though it would go to pieces. From the window overhead ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... she. "It explains why marriages go to pieces and affairs come to grief. Those lovers mistook love's promise to come for fulfillment. Love doesn't die. It simply fails ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... spring round-up, and to start things running for the year. Old Man Wisner and the old lady was there, and Old Man Wright and Jimmie and Bonnie Bell and me—me that was foreman now and, like enough, earning it, the way things had been let go to pieces. ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... be elected.[861] His contest was less with Republicans and Constitutional Unionists now, than with the followers of Breckinridge. He hoped to effect a reorganization of the Democratic party by crushing the disunion elements within it. With this end in view he could not permit the organization to go to pieces in the North. A listless campaign on his part would not only give the election to Lincoln, but leave his own followers to wander leaderless into other organizations. For the sake of discipline and future success, he rallied Northern Democrats for a ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... the inner meaning and mission of his life as he himself felt it. He was here for social restoration and moral salvage. No human being should go to pieces if he could help it. He was not only willing to help people who came to him for help, but he proposed to go after them. The "lost" man was too valuable ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... has the flavor of the wilderness and a free life. It is idyllic. And yet, with all our sentimentality, there is nothing feeble about the cooking. The slapjacks are a solid job of work, made to last, and not go to pieces in a person's stomach like a trivial bun: we might record on them, in cuneiform characters, our incipient civilization; and future generations would doubtless turn them up as Acadian bricks. Good, robust victuals are what the primitive ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... clamor without, nor stilled{298} the anxious heavings within. The occasion was momentous, and felt to be so. The church was in a perilous condition. A change of some sort must take place in her condition, or she must go to pieces. To stand where she did, was impossible. The whole weight of the matter fell on Cunningham and Candlish. No shoulders in the church were broader than theirs; and I must say, badly as I detest the principles ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the third of the tonal relations, melodies would lack unity and system and go to pieces under the stress of rival forces. This third relation may be call finality; [Footnote: The explanation of this is obscure; there is no unanimity among the specialists in musical theory.] it belongs among relations ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... show themselves bare-armed and ready for the contest. The English elms are of a more robust build, and stand defiant, with all their summer clothing about their sturdy frames. They may yet have to learn a lesson of their American cousins, for notwithstanding their compact and solid structure they go to pieces in the great winds just as ours do. We must drop much of our foliage before winter is upon us. We must take in sail and throw over cargo, if that is necessary, to keep us afloat. We have to decide between our ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... lifted his glass. "Time for everything but work, Crowther. She has developed beastly loose morals in her old age. Some day there'll come a nasty bust up, and she may pull herself together and do things again, or she may go to pieces. I wonder which." ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... more millions, learn the fatality of such mistakes. If the new ministry wisely avoid this hopeless policy, they will prove themselves better pilots and wiser men than they are conceived to be; for it is every day expected to see their bark strike upon some hidden rock, and go to pieces. ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... pest which is spreading and which will kill some of our most beautiful trees unless spraying is consistently practised. China berry trees, abundant in the South, and box elders, native to a score of states, are quick growing, but they reach maturity too soon and begin to go to pieces." ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... in thought. "This is a patchwork affair, made of gunny-sacks and hay-wire. I'm holding it together by main strength and awkwardness, and even at that it's apt to go to pieces ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... because it was beautiful and romantic, but because it served the interests of the political coterie that gained definite control of the government on the ruin of Antony. At Actium, the future Augustus did not fight a real war, he only passively watched the power of the adversary go to pieces, destroyed by its own internal contradictions. He did not decide to conquer Egypt until the public opinion of Italy, enraged against Antony and Cleopatra, required this vengeance with such insistence that he had to ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... more than attempts," he said quietly. "It's in you to do something really big. And you must do it. If not, you'll go to pieces. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... sleep, you know," he continued, "or you'll go to pieces. I shall be up all night reading for this blessed exam. You're more than welcome to my bed. To-morrow we'll have a late breakfast and—and see what can be done—and make plans—I'm awfully good at making plans, you know," he added with an attempt ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... very—terrible, Honor," she said. "I never imagined you could be as terrible as that." Then her lips quivered, and she caught at the girl's skirt, drawing her nearer. "You must go on helping me, or everything will go to pieces." ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... gleam of something like mummified pleasure passed unseen behind the spectacles of old Carson Tinker. "Stage-hands are the devil," he explained to the stupefied Canby. "Rehearsals bore them and they love to hear what an actor says when his nerves go to pieces. If Potter blows up they'll quiet down to enjoy it and then do it again pretty soon. If he doesn't blow up he'll take it out ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... of 'up country') are sulky and dispirited; they regret the slave days, and can't bear to pay wages; they have sold all their fine houses in town to merchants, &c., and let their handsome country places go to pieces, and their land lie fallow, rather than hire the men they used to own. They hate the Malays, who were their slaves, and whose 'insolent prosperity' annoys them, and they don't like the vulgar, bustling English. The English complain that the Dutch won't die, and that they are the curse of ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... upon what he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So of those who deal with the palpable and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... mind to see the stern go to pieces and take this with it," he said, setting the load at his feet. "The tide has not reached its height yet, and she will be roughly handled. We had best get ashore while we can. We may do ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... from people in Canada and from others in Florida who have suffered nervous breakdowns. In California some go to pieces. I have had many letters from people living there who have broken down. People also break down in Colorado and in New York; in fact, in every state in the Union. Climate does not seem to make any difference so far as this trouble is concerned, with the ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... not perish if what is called the church did go to pieces; a truer church, for there might well be a truer, would arise out of her ruins. But let no one seek to destroy; let him that builds only take heed that he build with gold and silver and precious stones, not with wood and hay and stubble! ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... admire his will. But, now that I've come to know you, I see that if he had lived to get acquainted with you he'd have made a very; different disposition of the family property. As it is, it's bound to go to pieces. No board ever managed anything successfully. It's always a man—one man. In this case it ought to be you. But the time will come—soon, probably—when your view will conflict with that of the majority of the board. Then out you'll go; and your years of intelligent ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... here bluff themselves and everybody else just so long and then suddenly go to pieces. It's a wonderful state, but what a life! What a life! Surely I was made for ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and I suppose that every thoughtful man among us feels that a great danger to our faith to-day comes from the force with which that current swings us round, and threatens to make some of us drag our anchors, and drift, and strike and go to pieces on the sands. For one man who is led by the sheer force of reason to yield to the intellectual grounds on which modern unbelief reposes, there are twenty who simply catch the infection in the atmosphere. They find ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... her aunt. "Such a thing would be quixotic. Society doesn't rest upon any such basis. It can't; it would go to pieces, if people acted ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... something else won't," grumbled Giraffe. "The blame old tub is just about ready to go to pieces on us, the first chance she gets; and ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... will, and on a lee shore too; so that the ship shall go to pieces on the rocks, and the Admiral and every soul on board ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... first thing to know.'—'I've got thirty-one hundred dollars even,' says he, 'and that will be one thousand and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents apiece. I've got bills to pay to-morrow for lumber and bricks, and my third will pay 'em. If I don't I'll go to pieces. You don't want to see me break up business, do you?'—'Now, Jerry,' says I, 'that won't do. You haven't got enough to divide into three parts. Putty and me agree to go halves with what we get out of you, and when I lay out a piece of business I don't make no changes. ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... see," said Maxime to himself, "if they could only see!... their whole society would go to pieces,... but they will always be blind, they do not want to ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... that was as frail as his mind, he would fear to use it. He would not trust himself on a plank so liable to crack. He would not venture into a boat so liable to go to pieces. He would not drive a tack with a hammer, the head of which is so ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney
... must exert his will power, change completely his mental and physical habits and his surroundings. Occupation, changed habits, taking in of confidence, faith and courage thoughts—these changes are necessary to the victim of melancholia, or he will shatter on the danger rocks and go to pieces. ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... war; that they had seen the folly of it, and the misery of it, and would devote themselves thereafter to the delightful pursuits of peace. Gradually the fighting ships of the ironclad class were allowed to go to pieces; gradually even the larger ships of the wooden sailing class fell into disrepair; gradually the idea of war faded from the minds even of naval officers; gradually squadrons and fleets, as such, were broken up, and our ships were to be found scattered singly over all the seas, and swinging ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... the Church of England really recognizes the fact. Meantime its idea of God is such as will not at all fit the God of the whole earth. And that is why she is in bondage. Except she burst the bonds of her own selfishness, she will burst her heart and go to pieces, as her enemies would have her. Every piece will be alive, though, ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... repairing the cast-off boots and shoes of London. Already in some provincial towns a great business is done by the conversion of old shoes into new. They call the men so employed translators. Boots and shoes, as every wearer of them knows, do not go to pieces all at once or in all parts at once. The sole often wears out utterly, while the upper leather is quite good, or the upper leather bursts while the sole remains practically in a salvable condition; but your individual pair of shoes and boots are no good ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... North, much to endure on account of that slavery from which it was all but impossible that they should disentangle themselves, may probably be true. But so have all political parties among all free nations much to bear from political opponents, and yet other free nations do not go to pieces. Had it been possible that the slaveowners and slave properties should have been scattered in parts through all the States and not congregated in the South, the slave party would have maintained itself as other parties ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... have been dreaming of," he rudely interrogated her, "to let the place go to pieces like this? Drifting behind year after year, and doing nothing to stop it—not cutting down one of the living expenses—not giving us the least hint of ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... done, however, had to be done quickly. The vessel had struck on a great rock, the billows were sweeping over her, and she might go to pieces any minute. The storm, although it had not yet reached its full height, was rapidly rising, the wind blew louder and louder, until we could scarcely hear each other speak. The men we had saved were battered and ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... from the rest by a ball and chain attached to wrist and ankle; "and yet we bear it for her sake and for Freedom's. Who of us regrets that we did not stay at home in inglorious ease, and leave our grand old ship of state to founder and go to pieces amid the ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... the star near it?—by its sinking, at times, in the ocean. Now observe the hummock, a little north of it, looking like a shadow in the horizon—'tis a hill far inland. If we keep that light open from the hill, we shall do well—but if not, we surely go to pieces." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Bill shore did," replied his father. "Reckon I would have squealed, though. Mother an' Lucy have a lot more nerve than me. Fact is, though, Bill didn't give 'em time to go to pieces. He just busted out with news of Blake's escape. Say, boy, you ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... to think over that,' she said, 'you'll go to pieces and be ashamed. Tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine. Only be quiet—be quiet, lad, or you'll set me off!' She made shift to soothe him, though ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... up your mind to be Lord Chancellor some day ... even if it only carries you as far as the silk gown of a Q.C. I suppose I ought now to write "K.C." A few years ago we all thought the State would go to pieces when Victoria died. Yet you see we are jogging along pretty well under King Edward. In the same way, you will soon get so used to the new Head Clerk, Mrs. Claridge, that you will wonder what on earth ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... dinner. When I entered the kitchen to demand a draught of milk, the man rose up and saluted me, and explained his errand. In the course of my ramble I had had hardly anything but this man in mind, and I had been planning to make use of him. When I met him all my plans seemed to go to pieces. I shall have to confess before I have done with it that I am the poorest plotter in the world. Give me something downright to do, and I will try to do it; but in dodges and evasions and pretences I have little skill indeed. I took the ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... lance in rest and waited, with my heart beating, till the iron wave was just ready to break over me, then spouted a column of white smoke through the bars of my helmet. You should have seen the wave go to pieces and scatter! This was a finer sight than ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... last began to be felt that the Union would go to pieces and the Federalists be to blame. Accordingly, on the 36th ballot, five Federalists from South Carolina, four from Maryland, one from Vermont, and one from Delaware—Mr. Bayard, grandfather to President ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... some persons purely political, would prove to be a moral revolution. The social class to which she belonged, not being able, during its unhoped-for triumph in the fifteen years of the Restoration to reconstruct itself, was about to go to pieces, bit by bit, under the battering-ram of the bourgeoisie. She heard the famous words of Monsieur Laine: 'Kings are departing!' This conviction, I believe was not without its influence on her conduct. She took an intellectual part in the new ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... me, believe only this once, that this time it is not a phrase, not a thing of dreams. I feel deep down in my innermost soul, that my life belongs inseparably with yours. If you leave me, I shall perish, go to pieces." ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... faces of the company, it was possible to see their differing expressions as the boat was lifted high in air by a wave, to be cast back into the dark depths; the shallop quivered like a fragile leaf, the plaything of the north wind in the autumn; the hull creaked, it seemed ready to go to pieces. Fearful shrieks went up, followed by an ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... more decisively set under her mannish hat, her waist never more attractively outlined in slenderness, she silently faced de Spain in the morning gray. His face reflected his chagrined perplexity. The whole fabric of his slender plot seemed to go to pieces at the sight of her. At the mere appearance of his frail and motionless foe a feeling of awkward helplessness dissolved his easy confidence. He now reversed every move he had so carefully made with his hands and, resentfully ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... go to pieces," he said, "you pretty near smash, don't you? You look as if you'd had a ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Kedsty since this morning. He isn't the Kedsty you knew yesterday or for the last ten years. He's nervous, and I miss my guess if he isn't constantly on the watch for some one. And he's afraid of me. I know it. He's afraid of me because I saw him go to pieces when he met that girl. Fort Simpson is simply a frame-up to get me away for a time. He tried to smooth the edge off the thing by promising me an inspectorship within the year. That was this afternoon, just before the ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... vulnerable place, the heel of Achilles, for capitalistic production. Its very basis is the necessity of constant expansion, and this constant expansion now becomes impossible. It ends in a deadlock. Every year England is brought nearer face to face with the question: either the country must go to pieces, or capitalist production must. Which is ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... time aright, have a system. Shape everything to it. Divide the twenty-four hours between work, recreation, sleep, and mental culture according to a scheme that suits your judgment and circumstances. Then make things go that way. The scheme will quickly go to pieces 10 ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... their fellows what they regard as the revealed word of God. In face of the challenging spirit of our time they maintain that they discharge a moral mission of such importance that society is likely to go to pieces if Christianity is abandoned. We therefore ask very pertinently where they were, and what they were doing, during the months when the nations of Europe were slowly advancing toward a ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... wedding they'd ever seen, and the most good things to eat, and Laddie and the Princess went with them. When the last one was gone, and only the relatives from Ohio were left, mother pitched on the bed, gripped her hands and cried as if she'd go to pieces, and father cried too, and all of us, even Mrs. Freshett, who stayed to wash up the dishes. She was so tickled to be there, and see, and help, that mother had hard work to keep her from washing the linen that same night. She did finish the last dish, scrub the kitchen floor, black the stove, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... you know, as we got out into the Atlantic this side of Cape Verde, the ship began to go to pieces. I don't pretend for one moment to understand what happened. But I think Greiffenhagen's recent work on the effects of radium upon ligneous tissue does rather carry out my idea that emanations from quap have rapid rotting effect ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... has come over you, Ossep? If you are willing to give 6,000 rubles, you will surely not let the whole thing go to pieces for the sake of 500 or ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... exclaimed the alarmed waterman. "A Holland galliot would go to pieces, if you should run her in among those stepping-stones, with this breeze! No honest boatman loves to see a man stowed in a cruiser's hold, like a thief caged in his prison; but when it comes to breaking the nose of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... obviously my fault," said Mark. "I expect I go to pieces in examinations, or perhaps I'm not intended ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... began to go to pieces—which was the beginning of the end. All hands knew it was to be every man for himself. We had no life preservers, and our one big dory had been smashed when the wreckage ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... coaxing, nearly half an hour, before she began to hitch along; for walk she wouldn't, and she didn't. She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nice silk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks and began to go to pieces. By the time she came to where she could stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,—"a noble wreck in ruinous perfection." She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or three ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... stating another fact when she said to herself that even now he might get side-tracked into some clerical job. Give him a month to himself now, and he might undo all the effort of the last six months. Worse than that, he might fall into the clutches of Blake and go to pieces ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... cannot be too frankly said at the outset that any attempt to settle Europe on the basis of the present hemming in of a consolidated Germany and German Austria by a hostile combination of Russia and the extreme states against it, would go to pieces by its own inherent absurdity, just as it has already exploded most destructively by its own instability. Until Russia becomes a federation of several separate democratic States, and the Tsar is either promoted to the honourable position of hereditary President or else totally abolished, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... it was at this point that the two men began to go to pieces. They were in an excited frame of mind, and this thing unmanned them. You will no doubt recall Keats's poem about stout Cortez staring with eagle eyes at the Pacific while all his men gazed at each other with a wild surmise, ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... not an attempt at grandeur, but due to a feeling that if he once got into chaotic ways he would go to pieces. Probably he felt the necessity all the more from the fact that he was a widower and might the more easily have dropped into untidy ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... be said that a theoretical physicist was judged by his inability to handle research apparatus; the clumsier he was in research, the better he was with theory. But Wolfgang Pauli was a lot more than clumsy. Apparatus would break, topple over, go to pieces, or burn up if Pauli just walked ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... on the spot; you certainly will." Julia felt anxious, for her mother showed signs of going into hysterics. But she put her foot out and shook her head in a way that said that all her friends might die and all the world might go to pieces before she would yield. Mrs. Anderson had one forlorn hope. She determined to order that forward. Leaving Julia alone, she went to ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... fact that he was their bread-winner. With every blow of his hammer the home grew, so he hammered away cheerfully. They were poor, but that was nothing in comparison with the fact that if he were taken away now, things would go to pieces. He was the children's Providence; it was always "Father's going to," or "Father said so." In their eyes he was infallible. Ellen too began to come to him with her troubles; she no longer kept them to herself, but recognized that he had the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... $50,000 to $100,000 in his house all the time in a little safe that you could open with a shoe buttoner. Get it. My skill as a tattooer is worth half the boddle. We go halves and catch a tramp steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United States go to pieces if it can't get along without ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... she said. "I'm a coward to go to pieces like this. You're a dear.... And it's every bit as bad for you as it is for me, I know. But I'm not a coward really. Bill would just hate me to be a coward. It's only because—because..." She met Betty's eyes, and for ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... pistol report. A bright blade of metal flashed past the wing-struts, to fall in a flashing arc. The motor broke abruptly into a mad, deep-voiced roar. Terrific vibration shook the ship, until I feared that it would go to pieces. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... the sunshine. Never losing heart and never losing head, with as strong a grip on his honor as on his property, detesting the very thought of failure, knowing that he might be broken to pieces, but determined that he would not weakly "go to pieces," he performed the greatest service to the community, as well as to himself, by resolutely, at any sacrifice, paying his debts when they became due. It is a pity that such austere Luthers of commerce, trade-militant instead of church-militant, who meet hard times with a harder will, had not a little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... hasn't happened to her that's addled her," David explained. "It's these highly charged, hypersensitive young women that go to pieces under the modern pressure. They're the ones that need licking into shape ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... the fate of a great banking institution could not be put in jeopardy just because Mrs. Bingle happened to be critically ill. Mr. Bingle, for the first time in his life, began to appreciate his own importance. He began to realise that in all likelihood the bank would go to pieces as the result of his failure to appear at his desk at the appointed minute. He recalled having seen the first vice-president and the cashier in close conversation as he slunk through the little passage behind the latter's office, and he remembered also with sickening clearness that ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... vote to say that Mr F. would not vote, advised every one to do the same, and let the rotten matter bust itself." So it certainly stands in the letter, which bears date 29th October 1868; but, according to Mr Mowbray Donne, "the phrase was rather: 'Let the rotten old ship go to pieces of itself.' At least," he adds, "so I have always heard it; and this suggests that once there was a galleon worth preserving, but that he would not patch up the old craft. He may have said both, of course." Anyhow, rightly or wrongly, FitzGerald ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... well enough. Perhaps Longworth will see us through, for, as he says, this sort of thing can be spoilt by niggardliness. He has known, and so have I, many a business go to pieces because of ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... critical moment the spanker-boom sheet fouled the wheel; still, we managed to get the vessel round, but scarcely were the braces belayed and the ship on the starboard tack, when she struck the ground broadside on. She was a soft-wood built ship, and she trembled, sir, as though she would go to pieces at once like a pack of cards. Sheets and halliards were let go, but no man durst venture aloft. Every moment threatened to bring the spars crushing about us, and the thundering and beating of the canvas made ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... strong man, a very strong man," he said, as if speaking to himself. "But there's a flaw in his armour just above the heart; and I believe that if any real harm comes to that wife of his, he'll go to pieces, like a wheel with the centre ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... individuals. God never destroyed a nation for its public or national sins until the people themselves had become individually thoroughly corrupt. The city of Sodom itself would have been spared had even five good men been found therein. And so the French nation does not go to pieces, as the Roman empire did, because, notwithstanding the vice of Paris, of which we hear and read so much, and the godlessness of French statesmanship and French literature, the great body of the people, even in Paris, still retain their integrity, and a wholesome ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... doubt but that, if the ship should get on shore under any unfavourable circumstances, she would immediately go to pieces; but with a soft bottom and smooth water, she might touch for a short time without any worse consequences than to another ship, if she did not heel much; but altogether, we judge it to be much more dangerous for her to get aground in her present state, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... go to pieces," said the General, "we'll replace 'em with moccasins. No use fussing with leggings while we're going to ride. We'll have open veldt country as far as Mount Kenia, anyway. Just get the idea that we're in Canada, going by wagon from Athabasca to ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... nothing else. By gad! it has unstrung the whole garrison, I believe. You never saw our people fall off so in their shooting. Of course we expected Jerrold to go to pieces, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... who "age" long before their time, that likewise great army of both men and women who along about middle age, say from forty-five to sixty, break and, as we say, all of a sudden go to pieces, and many die, just at the period when they should be in the prime of life, in the full vigour of manhood and womanhood and of greatest value to themselves, to their families, and to the world, is something that is contrary to nature, and is one of the pitiable ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... wilderness, devoid even of vegetation other than moss and low growing shrubs. One of my first discoveries was this cavern with its subterranean stream of water, and two openings, one of which gives easy access to the sea. Knowing that our ship must, sooner or later, go to pieces, and desirous of saving what property I might, I rigged up a derrick at the mouth of the cavern, and, with the aid of my brave wife, transferred everything movable from the wreck; a labour ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... ugly night, my lads, and we're on a rotten boat. The carpenter says, unless we run before the wind, we shall go to pieces in half-an-hour. I say, if we do run, we shall be on Slyne Head in two hours. Which shall it be? I ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Ona's sake, and pull himself together? In a little while they would be out of danger—now that they had given up the house they could live more cheaply, and with all the children working they could get along, if only he would not go to pieces. So Elzbieta went on, with feverish intensity. It was a struggle for life with her; she was not afraid that Jurgis would go on drinking, for he had no money for that, but she was wild with dread at the thought that he might desert ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair |
