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More "Undoing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shrouded in treacherous ambiguity—such a man, be he Black Republican or Democrat, is unworthy of her support. To vote for either, is to give away her influence, to be used against her. It is to stultify principle, and be the instrument of her own undoing." ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... deck to shut the skylight, but the catch was very stiff; it took me some few moments to undo. I noticed, as I worked at it, that the deck was empty, except for the lanky man with the package, who was now forward, apparently undoing his package on the forehatch. I thought that he was a sort of pedlar or bumboatman, come to sell onions, soft bread, or cheap jewellery to the sailors. The carpenter's head showed for an instant at the galley-door, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... only the other day when the Tsar's assumption of the title of Generalissimo lent new strength to the legend of the "Little Father." But the forces of "unholy Russia"—Pro-German Ministers and the sinister figure of Rasputin—have combined to his undoing, and now none is so poor to do him reverence. In the House of Commons everybody seems pleased, including Mr. Devlin, who has been quite statesmanlike in his appreciation, and the Prime Minister, in one of his angelic visits to the ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... made that will. He sent for Leon, you see, and must have seen at a glance that he had for a son—a mule, of the worst sort. He probably saw that to leave money to Leon was to give it to the Church, which meant that it would be spent for the further undoing of Spain and the propagation of ignorance ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... at his house in the Vosnesensky. Something will certainly be found there," he said, with insidious cunning, well knowing that Protopopoff's agents-provocateurs had already taken steps to secure the financier's undoing. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... had been fortified that day. Towards evening little Heywood Dare, the Taunton goldsmith, who had landed at Seatown and gone out with the news of the Duke's arrival, rode into Lyme with forty horse, mounted, himself, upon a beautiful charger which was destined to be the undoing of him. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... collar tight about his neck, and his Eton jacket stiff and unfriendly. He was walking up the aisle with his mother, his boots creaked, the bell's note was dropping, dropping, the fat verger with his staff was undoing the cord of their seat, the boys of the choir-school were looking at him and he was blushing, he was on his knees and the edge of the kneeler was cutting into his trousers, the precentor's voice, as remote from things human as the cathedral bell itself, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... The rest of us had no weapon of any sort to combat time with, and for four whole days I sat counting the drops of rain that fell from the ceiling into a bowl beneath, or in burbling the chain of my watch for the pleasure of undoing it. 'Oh, Plato! what tasks for a philosopher!' At length in a frenzy of ennui I mounted a brute of a horse that could do nothing but trot, and rode till I was ready to drop from the saddle—just for diversion. I left ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... man I had in one moment become a beggar; and up to this time I have lived solely on the alms that have been bestowed on me. But, in order to expiate the sin of avarice, which was my undoing, I oblige each passer-by ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... in which he had beheld that half-breed Piute Indian in the saloon. He remained out of sight even now, dispatching a messenger to Culver, in the afternoon, requesting his presence for a conference for the total undoing of Van Buren. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Cassidy, and Quinlan among them. Even that poor devil who had been on duty Friday night as sentry on Number Five had been marched into the awful presence of the commanding officer, and ordered to tell who gave him the whiskey that had been his undoing—even promising immunity from punishment; but he was Irish and true to his faith and his friends, even they who had betrayed him, and he'd die first, he said. Never would he "sphlit on the best ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... one grows to the belief that, while woman's glory is her hair, man's glory is to defeat some one. And if he can "defeat with great slaughter" his monument is twice as high as if he had only visited on his brother man a plain undoing. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... of Beatrix, haunted Esmond and pursued him. The Prince's figure appeared before him in his feverish dreams many times that night. He wished the deed undone for which he had labored so. He was not the first that has regretted his own act, or brought about his own undoing. Undoing? Should he write that word in his late years? No, on his knees before heaven, rather be thankful for what then he deemed his misfortune, and which hath caused the whole subsequent happiness ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to kick off his shoes, and was swimming towards the rock. Poor old man, he struggled hard for life. In a moment I forgot all the mischief he had caused, and considered how I might help to save him. Undoing my neck-handkerchief, I fastened it to another I had in my pocket, and secured the two to the sleeve of my jacket. I watched him anxiously as he drew near, crying out to encourage him. Then I lowered the handkerchiefs, and ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... the old warrior stirred. He had come to this, he who had planned, not for himself, but for his country. And because he was thinking clearly, in spite of his grief, he saw that his very ambition for the boy had been his undoing. In the alliance with Karnia he had given the Terrorists a scourge to flay ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... or not, it was a wish that Abraham Lincoln might have been spared to meet the situation. "I have been wondering where we are going to get a GREAT MAN, that will be tall enough to see over the whole country, and to direct that vast undoing of things which has got to be accomplished in a few years. It is a situation in which mere cleverness will not begin to work. The horizon of cleverness is too limited; it does not embrace enough of the heart of man, to ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... which she had never mixed, her intelligent innocence made the most artless avowals to my enraptured ear,—avowals that the more profligate minded woman of society would have blushed to whisper even to herself. And for these I loved her to my own undoing. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... was right. The crew of christianized natives were soon alongside, very humble in their apologies, and very anxious to assist in undoing the damage ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... journey. She contrasted her present misery with the joyousness that had possessed her when last she had been under the same roof as her lover. Tears welled into her eyes, but she held them back, fearing they would further contribute to the undoing of ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... impatience, and was then equally impatient to have it clasped again. But no description can convey an adequate impression of the weary restlessness with which from morning to night he pursued these labors of Sisyphus—doing and undoing—fretting that he could not do it, fretting ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... My plan for the undoing of the castles does not depend on force, but on craft. We three cannot carry away as much gold as can twenty-one, but our shares will be the same, and then we are not likely to find again so full a treasury as that at Rheinstein. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... He wolf and whelps upon those mounts pursued Which Pisa 'twixt and Lucca's domes obtrude. Hounds had he with him, lank and shrewd and keen, And in their front Gualandi's sword had place, Sismondi's lash and sour Lanfranchi's mace. Father and sons' undoing soon was seen; Methought the sharp fangs on them closed, and tore Their flanks, which now ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... her schoolhouses and churches that are trying to lift humanity heavenward the American Saloon is found lowering humanity and undoing the work these ministers and teachers have so ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... forty feet away, now thirty and almost ready to drop. Ten feet more and he would fire, Chris resolved. But that ten feet proved the ambitious little darky's undoing. A concentrated drop of buzzing liquid fire struck him above the eye, while hand and legs seemed splashed with molten fire. Down went the rifle with a thud and with a shrieked "Oh golly, oh golly, oh golly!" a black streak cleared the open ground with kangaroo-like leaps ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... no proof, but we think that Flippie's grandmother had a hand in the undoing of the security and peace which reigned supreme at Harmony before she came upon ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... the humble angle of the cavalier hat, the faint flush underneath, all formed together a challenge and an appeal which were the more irresistible for their sweet shamefacedness. Acute consciousness of the past (I thought), and (I even fancied) some penitence for a wrong by no means past undoing, were in every sensitive inch of her, as she sat a suppliant to the old player of that part. And there are emotions of which the body may be yet more eloquent than the face; there was the figure ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... permitted to sketch her countenance in various positions, and I Fondly protracted the study that was undoing me. The more I gazed on her the more I became enamoured; there was something almost painful in my intense admiration. I was but nineteen years of age; shy, diffident, and inexperienced. I was treated with attention and ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... causes him personal inconvenience, because he has acquired a sense of military values. But if it is either unduly harsh or unnecessarily lax, he likewise knows it and wears it as a hairshirt, to the undoing of his morale. Though the man, like the group, can be hurt by being pushed beyond sensible limits, his spirit will suffer even more sorely if no real test is put upon his abilities and moral powers. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... of linen-lapped one, Leek-sea-bearing goddess, Hawk-keen out of heaven Shone all bright upon me; But that eyelid's moonbeam Of gold-necklaced goddess Her hath all undoing Wrought, ...
— The Story Of Gunnlaug The Worm-Tongue And Raven The Skald - 1875 • Anonymous
... this box a vivid flash of lightning revealed its interior, and there, bolt upright, stood a tall Spanish grenadier, with his musket resting in a corner of the hut, close to his hand. I realised instantly that the briefest period of hesitation now meant our undoing; for as I had seen the soldier, he had also undoubtedly seen me; so the man no sooner stood revealed before me than, with one bound, I was in the sentry-box with him, one hand grasping his throat to prevent him from crying out, while with the ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... Noel. "Do you not know that I am always thinking of you; have I not proved it to you a thousand times? Look here! I am going to prove it to you again this very instant." He withdrew from his pocket the small packet he had taken out of his bureau drawer, and, undoing it, showed her a handsome velvet casket. "Here," said he exultingly, "is the bracelet you longed for so much a ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... virtues are always achieved by means of the excess of that propensity to love, and to believe in the truth of the object beloved, which is one of the most beautiful characteristics in woman; though, wo to her! it is but too often used to her undoing. ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... and slime to pollute them. They have dashed their iniquities into the face of everything decent and holy. And their work will be seen in the crime and debauchery and the hell of innumerable victims. Their columns are not long and broad enough to record the tragedies of their horrible undoing of ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... the world at his back! and what can any resistance of ours avail? We may gain a single victory—to that, genius and courage are equal, and we possess them in more than even Roman measure—but that very victory may be our undoing, or it will but embitter the temper of the enemy, call forth a new display of unexhausted and inexhaustible resources, while our very good success itself will have nearly annihilated our armies; and what can happen then but ruin, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... was undoing or rather tearing open the parcel; and the man was about to withdraw with all the court observance which the Protector would ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... signet ring, Francis. By that token the boatmen will take thee to London. By that token also thou mayest obtain horses at my house. Go, girl! Even now thou mayest be too late. As for me, with that ring on thee, 'twill be my undoing, but—take it." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... Muza; "the Christian king conquers more foes by craft than force; and his spies are more deadly than his warriors. Wherefore this caution against me, but (pardon me) for thine own undoing? Were I a traitor, could Ferdinand himself have endangered thy crown so imminently as the revenge of the leader of thine own armies? Why, too, this desire to keep thee inactive? For the brave every hour hath its chances; but, for us, every ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... slowly moved toward the edge of the bed and Hal lowered his weapons. This act almost proved the lad's undoing. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... have?—although I yearn To do them nicely to a turn, I can't afford an honest heat. This tariff makes even devils cheat! I'm ruined, and my humble trade All rascals may at will invade: Beneath my nose the public press Outdoes me in sulphureousness; The bar ingeniously applies To my undoing my own lies; My medicines the doctors use (Albeit vainly) to refuse To me my fair and rightful prey And keep their own in shape to pay; The preachers by example teach What, scorning to perform, I teach; And statesmen, aping me, all make More promises than they can break. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... syllable, old Tom," retorted Hurry, who smarted under Judith's observations; "the devil-tongued youngsters of the garrison have proved her undoing! I scarce know Jude any longer, and shall soon take to admiring her sister, who is getting to be much more ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the rivalry between Hughie and Foxy is preserved in John Craven's second letter to his friend Edward Maitland. The letter also gives an account of the master's own undoing—an undoing which bore fruit to the end of ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... folly that went near undoing me, for had it come to my father's ears, he had broke me without mercy. He was a hard man, my father; ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... his first brief order, one by one undoing the buttons of her dress, laying bare her poor chest, all flat and formless as a child's. A momentary gentleness came over him as he adjusted the tubes of his stethoscope and began the sounding, backwards and forwards from heart ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... darkness, he stood there, leaning against the wall in a state of collapse, creeping with horror from the touch of her yielding body, and inwardly raging at the weakness that he already dimly realised must prove his undoing. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... I am more or less at sea; but I believe that the bribe which was offered me to throw the ball game to Harvard was a trap meant to work my undoing." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... in wooing, In watching and pursuing The light that lies In woman's eyes, Has been my heart's undoing. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... in early prophecy on current events, but in such utterances as these there is manifest not merely the customary desire to stand in the limelight of assured knowledge and wisdom, but also the happy conviction that events in America were working to the undoing of the Radicals of Great Britain. If they would not be supine the Radicals must strike back. On December 4, at Rochdale where, as the Times asserted, he was sure of an audience sympathetic on purely personal grounds, Bright renewed his profession of faith in the American ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... A most absurd parody on Hamlet, wherein a lamentable tragedy written and repented by his uncle the king is unearthed and turned to the sad prince's undoing. ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... your lithe arms, ye graceful trees, The wind is out a-wooing! Ye may be many, yet he sees A way to your undoing. ...
— Out of the North • Howard V. Sutherland
... a triumphal entry into the last city left to the King of Belgium, Ypres, and to be on hand when his guards and marines from the Kiel Canal, who were present in large numbers, did the goose-step down the Rue Royale to Calais. The courage of the Canadians proved his undoing. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... did not possess her chum's measure of beauty. Helen was a dainty, compelling brunette with flashing eyes—eyes she had already learned to use to the undoing of what Ruth called "the youthful male ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... to go back to school he went up to bed tremulous with excitement. There was snow on the ground, and Aunt Louisa had allowed herself the unaccustomed luxury of a fire in her bed-room; but in Philip's little room it was so cold that his fingers were numb, and he had great difficulty in undoing his collar. His teeth chattered. The idea came to him that he must do something more than usual to attract the attention of God, and he turned back the rug which was in front of his bed so that he could kneel on the bare boards; and then it struck him that ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... evening paper in a pettish manner, that sufficiently denoted discontent. "We are always puffing our own progress in America, without exactly knowing whether a good deal of the road is not to be traveled over again, by way of undoing much that we have done. Here, now, is a specimen of our march in folly, in an advertisement of Bobbinett's, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... do chance such sundry high and notable inconveniences as be to the great and notorious detriment of the commonweal, the subversion of politic order in knowledge and distinction of people according to their preeminence and degrees, to the utter impoverishment and undoing of many light and inexpert persons inclined to pride, the mother of all vices: Be it enacted,"[415]—but I need not enter into the particulars of the uniforms worn by the nobles and gentlemen of the court of Henry VIII.; the temper, not the detail, is of importance; and of the wisdom ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... shears of Aunt Jen herself, a bodice and skirt of my mother's, dovelike in hue and carrying with them some of her own retiring quality in every line. It was all the same, with a shred or two of silk, with a little undoing here, a little tightening there, a broad splash of colour cut from one of my Uncle Rob's neckcloths—not anywhere, but just in the right place—Irma could give to all mankind the impression of being the only person ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... the power of speaking to me, will be my undoing. It won't let me pray, it interrupts me with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go on, I could not. Oh! Doctor, can the skill, and thought, and prayers ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... which victory may bring ruin, and disappointment endanger their heads.... Acquisition alone can make burdens palatable, and in a war with our own colonies we must inflict instead of acquiring them, and we cannot recover them without undoing them. I am still to learn wisdom and experience, if these things are not so." (Letter to Mann, January 25, 1775.) "A war with our colonies, which is now declared, is a proof how much influence jargon has on human actions. A war on our own trade is popular." (February 15, 1775.) "The war with ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... "My undoing has been caused by leniency to dogs like thee," said the Dey, with a dark scowl; then, clearing his brow, and drawing himself up with dignity, he turned to Omar, and added, "I decline to take part in mine own death. If I must die, let me be led forth to the ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... East when a Child-Christ is born. Every such child is surrounded by perils and menaces, strange dangers that befall not other babes; for he is anointed with the chrism of the second birth and the Dark Powers of the unseen world ever seek his undoing. Despite all trials, however, he grows into manhood, for the Christ once born can never perish, the Christ once beginning to develop can never fail in his evolution; his fair life expands and grows, ever-increasing in wisdom and in spiritual stature, until the time ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... occupied in times when travelling was more difficult. These changes are inevitable. The "Ship" at Greenwich has gone, and Cabinet Ministers can no longer dine there. The convalescent home, which was the undoing of certain Poplar Guardians, is housed in an hotel as famous as the "Ship," in its days once the resort of Pitt and his bosom friends. Indeed, a pathetic history might be written of the ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... argued Mrs. Hittaway,—Frank would at once throw himself at his cousin's feet, and all the difficulty would be over. The abominable, unjustifiable, and insolent interference of Lady Glencora just at the present moment would be the means of undoing all the good that had been done, unless it could be neutralised by some such activity as this. The necklace had absolutely faded away into nothing. The sly creature was almost becoming a heroine on the strength of the necklace. The very mystery with which the robberies ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... with intense animosity against the white people, who encroached, every year, more and more upon the Indian hunting grounds. His was a soul full kin to that of Timmendiquas, and if the two met it meant a great council and a greater endeavor for the undoing of the white man. What more likely than that they ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... powerful, for he stands higher at Versailles than any here. With the Governor I have influence, for he is, as you know, a kinsman of my mother's, and of late he has shown a fondness for me. Yet you can see that I must act most warily, that I must not seem to care for you, for that would be your complete undoing. I rather seem to scoff. (Oh, how it hurts me! how my cheeks tingle when I think of it alone! and how I clench my hands, hating them all ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Byron's great-uncle, from whom he had inherited his title, had killed the grandfather of Miss Chaworth in a duel, lent a romantic tinge to the matter—the boy was doing a sort of penance, and in one of his poems hints at the undoing of the sin of his kinsman by the lifelong devotion that he will bestow. This calling up the past, and incautious revealing of the fact that the ancestor Chaworth could not hold his own with a Byron, but allowed himself to be run through the body by the Byron cold steel, was not pleasing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... be done by concession and conciliation,—and not by force. The plan he proposed, therefore, to obtain this consummation was, to allow all the claims the Americans had set forth in their petitions and declarations, and by undoing all that the parliament had done respecting America, since the year 1765. His resolutions were briefly these:—That the colonies not being represented in parliament, could in no way be taxed by parliament; that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Where our sick souls do lie Tossing continually! O where thy voice doth come Let all doubts be dumb, Let all words be mild, All strifes be reconciled, All pains beguiled! Light bring no blindness, Love no unkindness, Knowledge no ruin, Fear no undoing! From the cradle to the grave, Save, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... river stole away like a thief in straight places, or swung round corners with an eddy; the willows nodded, and were undermined all day long; the clay banks tumbled in; the Oise, which had been so many centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have changed its fancy, and be bent upon undoing its performance. What a number of things a river does, by simply following Gravity in ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... need of large populations. But we're told to increase and multiply at the command of God, so you needn't fear machines will ever lower our power to do so. If that happened, it would be as much as to say God allowed us to produce something to our own undoing." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... impossible to know many well, to understand all their temptations and difficulties, and so help them effectively. To supply every needy family with a friend may seem an impossible ideal, but if all who are undoing each other's work to-day by doing it twice over, and if all who now waste their time in unnecessary charities, were seriously to put themselves in training, and confine their work to the thorough treatment of a few families, ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... concern about paying the interest of the national debt, but leave it, as in loyalty bound, wholly to the wisdom of the honourable House of Commons; I come now to consider by what methods we may be able to put off and delay our utter undoing as ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... come out again—on business," she said, with that ready mingling of the false and true which had been her undoing. "And I thought I could leave this for Miss Kresney as I passed. Will you please give it to her. I am sorry she is ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... not resist the temptation to glance at Martin Trevor—she had not seen him for some time, and it was surprising to meet him in the middle of the week, as he generally came home only for week-ends. That glance was her undoing—a certain cordiality must have crept into it, inspired by his broad shoulders and handsome, swarthy face, for Mr. Pratt was immediately encouraged, and pounced. He broke away from Trevor ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... to God, I should have made her such rich amends as would have pleased her and gained her mercy. God! what could my crime have been? I think she must have known that I mounted upon the cart. I do not know what other cause she can have to blame me. This has been my undoing. If this is the reason of her hate, God! what harm could this crime do? Any one who would reproach me for such an act never knew what love is, for no one could mention anything which, if prompted by love, ought to be turned into a reproach. Rather, everything that one can do for his lady-love ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... at Kirklees Nunnery, in fair Yorkshire, with mercy in his heart toward those that had been his undoing; for thus he showed mercy for the erring and pity for the weak through all the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... was the happiest of all mothers, and so would she have remained if she had not believed herself so peculiarly blessed. Her very knowledge of her good fortune was her undoing. ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... particular writer really believes is that the German people, through some innate and incurable frowardness of disposition, have turned the inestimable blessings of compulsory soldiership to their own moral undoing, and have made themselves wholly bad and beastly, in spite of a beneficent institution which would have made ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... carried out. The patient must cooperate, and to get him to do this he must be tactfully warned of his condition. Many, such patients, noting their impaired ability, do not seek medical advice, but think all they need is more exercise; hence they walk, golf, and dance to excess and to their cardiac undoing. ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... Now Otter, hastily undoing the cord from Juanna's waist, made it into a running noose which he threw down to Leonard, who placed it over his shoulders. Having lifted the spear from the cleft in which it stood, he commenced his ascent. His first movements cost him a pang of agony, and no wonder, for the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... foresight than Grattan, Flood desired that the Volunteers should refuse to lay down their arms until the Catholic question had been settled. But Grattan, still filled with that spirit of generous trust which has been the undoing of so many noble Irishmen, refused to use the military power for any further exaction of ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... girl—she has ruined me, she will be my undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended for you—it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance—oh, how can I ever ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... but he became her favourite pupil. And Hypatia, dreaming that the worship of the old gods might be restored, and her philosophy triumph over Christianity, received daily visits from Orestes, the governor, and entered into his plans—to her undoing. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... religious world, imagined themselves to have received special revelations from Heaven, and claimed to have been divinely commissioned to carry forward to its completion the Reformation which, they declared, had been but feebly begun by Luther. In truth, they were undoing the very work which he had accomplished. They rejected the great principle which was the very foundation of the Reformation,—that the word of God is the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice; and for that unerring guide they substituted the changeable, uncertain ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... which the "farmer" watched that day, one poor man was sold for the price of a pair of shoes. The poor had even no chance to get justice in the courts. The greed for money placed corrupt officials in office and the offenders bribed them to the undoing ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... pleasure, or shock to the extreme of endurance; and on a still larger, kill whether they be on the right side or the wrong. Nature, as I said in "Life and Habit," hates that any principle should breed hermaphroditically, but will give to each an helpmeet for it which shall cross it and be the undoing of it; and in the undoing, do; and in the doing, undo, and so ad infinitum. Cross-fertilisation is just as necessary for continued fertility of ideas as for that of organic life, and the attempt to frown this or that down merely on the ground that it ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... and seemed disinclined to speak, but at last let the cat out of the bag and revealed a diabolical conspiracy—the horse had been brought back for my undoing, or rather for the undoing of the strings of ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... Johnnie could not help but wonder how he was ever to get on if the laws bound him so tight to the truth, and the truth would prove the undoing, the wrecking ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... snapped as he lay and a red slaver dripped from his fangs. Not twelve feet away, Sundown gazed upon the scene with fear-wide eyes. "Go to it, Chance!" he quavered, and his encouragement was all but the dog's undoing, for he lost the wolf's gaze for an instant, barely turning in time to meet the vicious charge. Sundown groaned as the wolf, with a slashing stroke, ripped the dog's neck from ear to shoulder. The stones in the enclosure ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... a moment. Hasty speech has been the downfall of many; ill-considered silence was the undoing of ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... Rebecca Mary's fingers and rolled on the floor, to the undoing of the little, white cat, who had gone to bed in his basket. Rebecca Mary caught him up as he darted after the pencil, and hugged him in an odd little ecstasy. She felt ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... looked at Ernest. He was lying low in his seat in an almost fainting condition. Frank, with closed eyes, looked deathly in the early morning light. Bill struggled out of his seat, and stood shakily beside the plane, undoing his helmet. A group of orderlies and janitors ran up, and several officers in more or less undress appeared on the porches. Bill, reeling, walked over to ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... reason of his own not at all clear to Malvina, had forbidden the taking off of the coat. But had said nothing about undoing it. So by way of response Malvina ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... that the saloon-keeper never hinted at pay. He poured out drink after drink of the vitriolic whiskey, which Whiskers made in the secrecy of his back-room; and as Wunpost drank and shuddered the waspish Phillip F. Lapham set about his complete undoing. First he went to Dusty Rhodes, who still claimed a full half, and browbeat him until he fell back to a third; and then, when Dusty priced his third at one million, he turned to the disillusioned Billy. Her ideas were more moderate, as ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... unconsciously ally themselves with it, and find that there is a tide that bears them on. Divine will? Not necessarily. There is no understanding of it. Guardian spirits? There are many who so believe, to their utter undoing. (Witness Macbeth). An unconscious drift in the direction of right, virtue, duty? These are banners of mortal manufacture. Nothing is proved; ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... certainly have been torn to pieces in five minutes by the Indian curs which came howling round him, had not an old woman come to the rescue and driven them away. With the help of her grand-son—a little naked creature, just able to walk, or rather to stagger—she dragged him to her tent, and, undoing the line that fastened his mouth, offered him ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to put her children to bed, only to find that her fertility of imagination in the afternoon was to prove her undoing in the evening; for her memory was by no means as reliable as her powers ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... passed and in that time I had entered every chamber except that one whose door I was charged not to open. But my thoughts ever ran upon that forbidden fortieth and Satan urged me to open it for my own undoing...." ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... cravat as if he had been undoing the parchment of a great treaty. He fell asleep in the midst of rehearsing the speech which he meant to make upon occasion of his presentation as foreign minister somewhere; while his beloved partner lay by his side, and resolved that Alfred Dinks must immediately secure Hope Wayne ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... little river, May thy loving prosper ever! Heaven speed thee, poplar tree, May thy wooing happy be. GENERAL: Yet, the breeze is but a rover, When he wings away, Brook and poplar mourn a lover Sighing,"Well-a-day!" MEN: Well-a-day! GENERAL: Ah! the doing and undoing, That the rogue could tell! When the breeze is out a-wooing, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... and the fire. See how the sausages burst and splutter in their different pans. See how stolidly the tough steaks brown, refusing either to splutter, yield fat, or find gravy to assist in their own undoing. ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... trembling, for she could scarcely stand. His unmoved certainty was terrifying. "Your father was a very popular man. His vanity was his undoing. Juliet was too smart to let him throw away her money, so rather than lose his reputation as a good sport, rather than not keep up his end, he looked elsewhere for the needful, and he came to me, not once, but many times. At last he wore out my patience and the Carder spring ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... as day, with the moon full on the window at the end of it. And wrapped in a shawl, with her back to me, stood my dream girl, undoing the front door as noiselessly as I ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... drawing his pork to the extremity of the hanger, and arming himself with his lantern and his old sack, he set out on what, in ordinary weather, would have been a twenty minutes' errand. He could not have locked his door without undoing his well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his way to the Stone-pits on such a night as this? and why should he come on this particular night, when he had never come through all the ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... their lives. They were only carrying out strenuously the principles laid down under Gregory's guidance in many acts of synods and inculcated by Gregory in numberless private letters. And yet Gregory is found frequently undoing their acts, restoring bishops whom they have deposed, accepting excuses or explanations which ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... believe," said she to herself, "that I begin to see how it was done. Nay, perhaps I could tie it up again, after undoing it. There would be no harm in that, surely. Even Epimetheus would not blame me for that. I need not open the box, and should not, of course, without the foolish boy's consent, even if ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Before leaving Pernambuco he desires that a testimony of everything that has happened since his departure from Spain until his arrival at Pernambuco be taken down by the notary-public, this testimony being taken from the men who had come with him, "and the Frenchmen who were present at my undoing, and others who heard it from persons who were in the ships of the French who destroyed me." Acuna desires this in case any accident befall him while on the way to Portugal, and "that the emperor may be informed of the truth, and that I may give account of myself." This testimony is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... woman who is interested in them. Thus I always seemed to have the good luck of the bashful man up to the last gasp, and until I began to turn blue. She would then see that it was apoplexy, and not her charms, which was undoing me. But the apoplexy, the bulging veins and the reddening eyes were forgotten when I sought relief by inserting the first two fingers of each hand on either side of my collar, and with a short, outward jerk, would ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... ruth. Yet durst they not openly commiserate the Prince's victims, for fear of evil handling by his armed dependents, which were set to guard the bodies. Young men gazed at the Princess's corse, for to discover the traces of that beauty which had been her undoing, while the little children would be expounding one to the other the meaning of ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... of a good parentage and a careful training find it hard enough to make their way. Sometimes, it is true, the passionate love of the deserted mother for the child which has been the visible symbol and the terrible result of her undoing stands between the little one and all its enemies. But think how often the mother regards the advent of her child with loathing and horror; how the discovery that she is about to become a mother affects her like a nightmare; ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... impertinence to her and a shame to yourself. But to pour forth such worship, such offers of service, at the feet of an unhappy woman—age-old sophistry, so often ruling the speech and actions of men to their fatal undoing!—this is praiseworthy and legitimate, a matter not of privilege merely, but of obligation to whoso would claim to be ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Summer was upon the land, early summer, with the sweet winds stirring upon the waters, with gauze-winged creatures flitting above the shallows where willow and vine-maple fringed the edges and silver fish leaped to their undoing, with fleecy clouds floating in a sapphire sky, and birds straining their ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... Perkins in amusing the mob with meat and drink and huzzas, till Sir Philip Jennings Clerke could get the troops and pack up the counting-house bills, bonds, &c. and carry them, which he did, to Chelsea College for safety,—could have saved us from actual undoing. The villains had broke in, and our brewhouse would have blazed in ten minutes, when a property of L150,000 would have been utterly lost, and its once flourishing possessors ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... presses, With honey-sweet caresses, And still, to my undoing, He wins me, with his wooing, To buy his ware With all its care, ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... daughters many, Yet for this boy's sake I will not suffer One of them all at home with me to tarry; They should not be kept thus under my wing, And have all that which they desire; For why it is but their only undoing, And, after the proverb, we put oil to the fire.[317] Wherefore we parents must have a regard Our children in time for to subdue, Or else we shall have them ever untoward, Yea, spiteful, disdainful, naught and untrue. And let us them thrust alway to the school, Whereby at their ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... right. The crew of christianized natives were soon alongside, very humble in their apologies, and very anxious to assist in undoing the ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. 'IF I don't take this child away with me,' thought Alice, 'they're sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn't it be murder to leave it behind?' She said the last words out loud, ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... met her eyes, as she opened the door, completed her undoing. There was Fauntleroy, with an uncomprehending grin on his cherubic face, pinching each separate leaf of her cherished sensitive-plant. Evidently the borrowed baby did not exactly understand the desperately funny ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... made more lovely nor more exalted through contact with that which has neither the status of the one nor the other at heart, except that beauty or high estate be ready ministers of a rapacity calculated sooner or later to bring about its own terrible undoing. ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... "I know nothing. I wish to know nothing. Go back to London at once. I have made everything right; no one suspects. I shall not be there; you will never see me again, and you will have an opportunity of undoing your ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... unfastened; I see tonight that two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear, somewhat ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... and those other gentlemen a very considerable debt, and I have been solemnly warned against you by the young lady whom I met at the Cafe de Paris. I have been assured that association with you is the first step toward my undoing. Monsieur Bartot, for all his bluster, seemed very anxious to ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that of a dog. Werper loved life. What was this woman to him, anyway? She was a European, doubtless, a member of organized society. He was an outcast. The hand of every white man was against him. She was his natural enemy, and if he refused to lend himself to her undoing, Achmet Zek ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water-snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... surrounded by a set of young men and women who made use of her favor and took advantage of her influence; the result was the formation of a regular Polignac set, almost all questionable persons, but an exclusive circle, permitting no division of favor, and undoing all who endeavored to rival them. This coterie of favorites may be said to have caused Marie Antoinette as much unpopularity and contributed as much to her ruin, and even to that of royalty, as ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... of effort, and this Mr. Curtis counselled against. He did not believe that any man could successfully serve two masters; it would also mean a division of public association; it might result in Bok's physical undoing, as already he was overworked. Mr. Curtis's arguments, of course, prevailed; the negotiations were immediately called off, and for the second time—for some wise reason, undoubtedly—the real Edward Bok was subdued. He went ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... there that can be done?" answered Leopold. "It does seem hard that a man should be made capable of doing things that he is not made capable of undoing again." ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... come to? I was used to hear say, in Queen Mary's days, that the great Council to London were busy undoing what had been done in King Harry's and King Edward's time: but I ne'er heard that the Lord had ta'en His Word in pieces, and laid up an handful ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... half or any other fraction. Therefore, if any reserve be made, any corner kept for something unconnected with this true work and sincere purpose, the whole is thereby vitiated and accurst. So far as his arm reaches he is undoing whatever in nature is holy: ruining whatever is the real creation of the great worker of all. This truth of purpose is to the soul what life is to the body of man; that which unites and organises the mass, keeping all the parts in due proportion and concord, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... to Muriel, though her peace He would have purchased for her with all prayers, And costly, passionate, despairing tears? O what to her that he should find it worse To bear her life's undoing ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... Phillips, while Helga, farther up the hall, was undoing the Professor; "three times on a night like this? No, indeed! Get back into the garage as ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... go again, Miriam! What's eatin' you to-day?" cried the foreman, as he came along to inspect the work; and seeing Miriam undoing my ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changed situation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done—there can be no undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down. Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back with the lies into the darkness. But how can we—Edith and I—and Hester—ever live the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Ernest. He was lying low in his seat in an almost fainting condition. Frank, with closed eyes, looked deathly in the early morning light. Bill struggled out of his seat, and stood shakily beside the plane, undoing his helmet. A group of orderlies and janitors ran up, and several officers in more or less undress appeared on the porches. Bill, reeling, walked ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... spirit generated by the very nature of slavery, and fostered by their long defense of slavery. That genesis of the movement is all the more impressive when we recognize the high personal character of its leaders, and acquit them of conscious motives of personal ambition. Slavery was their undoing. The habit of absolute control over slaves bred the habit of mastery whenever it could be successfully asserted. There grew up a caste, its members equal and cordial among themselves, but self-assertive and haughty ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... even in vice, if that be possible. He was no better than his friends save in these easy qualities, but while he was as bad in all other respects as his surroundings, the evil in him was due more to environment than to natural tendencies, and the good—well, that was his undoing, as this history will show. A man who attempts to 'bout ship morally in too great haste is liable to miss stays and be swamped, for nothing so grates on us as the sudden reformation of our friends, while we ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... fashion, he paddled about in the edge of the water for a few moments, then turned to walk back to the shore. The next moment proved to be his undoing. Unconscious for the once of his appearing, Cicely had been swimming back and forth just outside the line of surf; then borne on the crest of a wave higher by far than any of its fellows had been, she came ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... youth failed of fame as the laurel almost embraced his brows. A hickory walking-stick was thrust between his legs; and he, expecting to strike, received a blow upon the temple sufficient for his present undoing and bedazzlement. He went over backwards, and the pitchfork (not the thing to hold poised on high when one is knocked down) fell with the force he had intended for ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... He reflected with satisfaction upon the probable feelings of the old Leone Saracinesca, when, after relinquishing his birthright, he found himself married and the father of a son. How the poor man must have cursed his folly and longed for some means of undoing the deed! It was but common justice after all—it was but common justice, and it was a mere accident of fate that Leone's great- grandson, who was now to be reinstated in all the glories of his princely possessions, was ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... these soldiers was a white chief, whom they called Yellow Hair. He was a smashing, dashing, fearless soldier who understood the Indian ways and haunts, and then used this knowledge for the undoing ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... friend who ought to spare me, who might advise me and help me to save myself, and yet who is undoing me—is killing me." ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is our undoing because we are always in such a hurry to get somewhere that we would rather take the first car and get squeezed into breathlessness than wait for the next which would likely ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... Blue might be a daring air pilot, but with his companion a perfect greenhorn in all that pertained to the art, he would be more or less handicapped. A sudden incautious movement on the part of the novice might prove the undoing of the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... strongly I have hoped that you would not return! In my soul I wanted to see you go on in your own fashion, following your own dreams and caring not for mine. That was the Meriwether Lewis I had pictured to myself. I shall glory in my own undoing, if it has meant ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... conscious of his undoing; he recognized in her stupidity, vileness and falsehood, and he longed to possess her, poisoned ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... in Markham. 'He has gone down-hill fast enough, since I used to see him in your father's time; but I am glad he had the decency not to be the undoing ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could handle an oar, she called off the building crew and set them to new tasks, then she cleared the house of its guests. Rooms were invaded with peremptory orders to vacate; the steady help was put to undoing what they had already done, and soon the premises were in tumult. Such rooms as had been completed were dismantled even while the protesting occupants were yet gathering their belongings together, Beds were knocked down, bedding was moved out; windows, door- knobs, hinges, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counsellor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... in for one of those spells of fine weather which in those regions so often follow upon such a storm as had proved the undoing of the Royal Christopher. If the conditions had been different our lives would have been sufficiently enviable. Fair Island deserves its name; we had summer, food and water; so far as material comfort went, ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... suicides among the natives to prove that the Mektoub doctrine is not wholly pernicious. Suicides were quite unusual, he said; the Arabs do not seem to be able to fall in with the idea, preferring to bear the greatest evils rather than take an active part in the undoing of themselves. That was Mektoub: to bow the head, dumbly resisting. And were they not right? Did not the great majority of European cases of suicide imply a neurotic condition—such as when men of business have suffered reverses on Exchange or lost some trivial ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... thought Sir Ulick: he walked to the window, and looking out, hoped that Harry Ormond would soon make his appearance. "You are doing, or undoing, a great deal here, cousin Cornelius, I see, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... motives, rather phased even the blunted spirit of Donald Pike. If he had dared to, he would have committed his story to writing, and so brought it to Lee's attention. But things that are written often have an unpleasant way of reappearing, to the discomfiture and undoing of the writer, and Pike's caution warned him against such risks. Words merely spoken, he assured himself, can be denied, if that becomes afterward necessary. Written words, undestroyed, cannot be so ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... you gave yon sprain To poor Dun Para's arm; It is myself would have the work Undoing of the harm— I'd twist around the three-ply cord Well-knotted ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... ran into his buggy—she stopped with a little start of surprise, only to look into his clean-cut face, smiling half patronizingly, half humorously, and with a look of command too, and of patronage withal, of half-gallant heart-undoing. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... continuous giving of one more chance to the Farrels has proved their undoing. They first mortgaged part of the ranch in 1870; when the mortgage fell due, they executed a new note plus the accrued interest and mortgaged more of the ranch. Frequently they paid the interest and twice they paid half the principal, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... very terrifying to the Hermit, for he recalled how often the demon, in tempting the Desert Fathers, had taken the form of a woman for their undoing; but he reflected that, since there was nothing pleasing to him in the sight of this female, who was brown as a nut and lean with wayfaring, he ran no great danger in looking at her. At first he took her for a wandering Egyptian, but as he looked he perceived, among the heathen charms, ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... people. Again, Germany's system of education, tho objectively efficient, has been far from satisfactory because not based on sane moral principles. And that fact, by the way, has finally been Germany's undoing. Now, we can scarcely conceive of Democracy erecting an educational structure on an ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... his energy directed to?" said Alexey Alexandrovitch. "Is he aiming at doing anything, or simply undoing what's been done? It's the great misfortune of our government—this paper administration, of ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... new kind of bottles that have the corks wired down. They are much better than the old, and it's very little trouble undoing the wire." ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... meal, Brady got up from the box he had been seated on. He went over to the bundles he had brought, undoing one of them. He took out a long black dress coat. This he tried on. It buttoned up to his neck closely, like some ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... look after their suspended interests, while the father came to Paris to found his banking-house. Moreover, I have been well rewarded for my kindness. When, at the death of my poor Ahmed, the Mouchir, his brother, ascended the throne, the Hemerlingues, restored to favour, never ceased to work for my undoing with the new master. The Bey still keeps on good terms with me; but my credit is shaken. Well, in spite of that, in spite of all the shabby tricks that Hemerlingue has played me, that he plays me still, I was ready ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... pocket a little packet and laid it on the table. Carefully undoing it, he revealed a lady's handkerchief, pinned through the folds with a pin of discoloured Venetian gold, the stone of which had fallen from the socket. A scent of dried violets ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... their breath. Poor Captain Lem! Rushing thus to his own undoing! But still they had to gaze and gaze—they could not turn their eyes away; and gazing they beheld a stranger thing than ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... be some satisfaction to you," he said, "to know that this may mean my undoing, disgrace, a dishonorable dismissal from ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... spoke was set up within a stone's throw of the General Post Office in which, four years later, he was to give effect to the words he spoke then and to earn his own death in undoing the work of Redmond's lifetime. At that moment no one heeded his utterance, nor the speech, also in Irish, of Professor John MacNeill from another platform, which went, as its speaker was destined to go, half ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... gone to the bedroom to wash after his journey. She contrasted her present misery with the joyousness that had possessed her when last she had been under the same roof as her lover. Tears welled into her eyes, but she held them back, fearing they would further contribute to the undoing of her looks. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... women who have failed to get before the public, turn to teaching without any practical experience, and, armed only with a few methods, teach these alike to all pupils, ruining many good voices. Should these pupils change teachers, even for the better, then begins the weary undoing of the false method, often with no ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... compromise himself in anything, as a certain lawyer had once told him; but the evil habit of disregarding the dictates of one's own conscience, of having little faith in legal folk, and of seeking aid from others where one is sufficient unto himself, was his undoing. His companions, especially Juanito Pelaez, were making signs to him to admit it, so he let himself be carried away by his evil destiny and exclaimed, "Concedo, Padre," in a voice as faltering as though he were saying, "In manus tuas commendo ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Catholics, Hilderic had recalled the Bishops of the orthodox party and was in all things reversing the bitter persecuting policy of his ancestors, amalafrida, the sister of Theodoric and widow of Thrasamund, who had been for nearly twenty years queen of the Vandals, passionately resented this undoing of her dead husband's work and put herself at the head of a party of insurgents, who called in the aid of the Moorish barbarians, but who were, notwithstanding that aid, defeated by the soldiers of Hilderic at Capsa. Amalafrida herself was taken captive ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... my signet ring, Francis. By that token the boatmen will take thee to London. By that token also thou mayest obtain horses at my house. Go, girl! Even now thou mayest be too late. As for me, with that ring on thee, 'twill be my undoing, but—take it." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... Marquis, I suppose that he sailed away on the schooner. You need fear him no longer. It was he, I am convinced, that conveyed to them the information of the loosened casement in the Oak Parlour, and unwittingly arranged for his own undoing and our salvation. At all events he will have realized now that he has hopelessly lost the fight. As for the treasure, by right it belongs to Eloise, who should not disdain to use it. I enclose a transcription of the other half of the torn scrap of paper, which will supplement ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... It was true that, as no woman's disgrace was confessedly traced to him, so neither was any man's ruin—save only in the doubtful instance of the unfortunate Johnstone. He never won of any person, however ardent, more than a certain portion of his fortune—the rest of his undoing Saville left to his satellites; nay, even those who had in reality most reason to complain of him, never perceived his due share in their impoverishment. It was common enough to hear men say, "Ah! ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... men, Fitzroy, Cassidy, and Quinlan among them. Even that poor devil who had been on duty Friday night as sentry on Number Five had been marched into the awful presence of the commanding officer, and ordered to tell who gave him the whiskey that had been his undoing—even promising immunity from punishment; but he was Irish and true to his faith and his friends, even they who had betrayed him, and he'd die first, he said. Never would he "sphlit on the best ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... of pestering his intimates. But without waiting for a reply, Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber, and returned with the same ponderous folio, bound in black leather, which common report affirmed to be a book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume, and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue, and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the previous night, he found himself on the ottoman before Paquita, who was undoing his bandage; but he saw her pale and altered. She had wept. On her knees like an angel in prayer, but like an angel profoundly sad and melancholy, the poor girl no longer resembled the curious, impatient, and ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... Introductory Survey of World History, was a simple enough course to teach, but its very simplicity was its undoing, Forrester thought. The deadly dullness of the day-after-day routine was enough to wear out the ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... than fainted. It might have been that Ephraim had inherited from her the heart-taint that had afflicted and shortened his life, and it might have been that her terrible experiences of the last few months would have strained her heart to its undoing, had its valves been ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with his knuckles a thundering reveille that echoed and re-echoed ghostily through the rumbling old house. In a moment there was a shuffling of footsteps inside, a rattling of a chain, and the noisy undoing of rusty bolts. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... campaign, then, is one that concerns not only the political forces of the nation, but the moral forces as well, since the pressing of this great wrong upon the hearts of an inoffensive, patient and aspiring people tends to their moral undoing, not only by the evil passions engendered, but also, as has been pointed out, by the withdrawing of so much of the attention of the race from internal development to the absorbing, exacting and, in some respects, narrowing task of battling against ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... she flared up stormily. With this sharp flaring-up every single individual pulse in her body seemed to jerk itself suddenly into conscious activity again like the soft, plushy pound-pound-pound of a whole stocking-footed regiment of pain descending single file upon her for her hysterical undoing. "Maybe I've had a good deal more experience than you give me credit for!" she hastened excitedly to explain. "I tell you—I tell you I've been engaged!" she blurted forth with a ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... inquiring, with M. Salomon Reinach, whether the Marshal committed the crimes for which he was condemned, or whether his wealth, coveted by a greedy prince, did not in some degree contribute to his undoing, there is nothing in his life that resembles what we find in Bluebeard's; this alone is enough to prevent our confusing them or merging ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... she did, Mr. Morton; and all that has to be undone,—and I have got the undoing of it. Lady Ushant is one thing and her papa's business is quite another. At any rate if I have my say she'll not go to Cheltenham any more. I don't mean to be uncivil to you, Mr. Morton, or to say anything as oughtn't to be said of your aunt. But when you can't make people anything but what ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... blue eyes of his which could be by turns so fierce, so unrelenting, and—did she not know it to her heart's undoing?—so unutterably tender, besought her. But, for once, they awakened no response. She ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... what you see, Lieutenant,—but I see wild pigs rooting up my immature plants, lack of labor, poor transportation, fluctuations of price, typhoons undoing a whole year's work—take my word for it, ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... Council were prepared to accept the authorised form of religion, whatever it might happen to be, and, besides the Howards, Gardiner was the only convinced and determined champion of the Catholic faith. Even at the moment of Cromwell's fall, there was no intention of undoing anything that had already been done; Henry only determined that things should not go so fast, especially in the way of doctrinal change, as the Vicegerent wished, for he knew that unity was not to be sought or found in that direction. ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... truer syllable, old Tom," retorted Hurry, who smarted under Judith's observations; "the devil-tongued youngsters of the garrison have proved her undoing! I scarce know Jude any longer, and shall soon take to admiring her sister, who is getting to be much more ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... 8th, Lord Salisbury had his opportunity of undoing this great effect—of reasserting that intellectual as well as mere voting dictatorship which he holds in the House of Lords; and he signally failed to rise to the occasion. I do not like the policy of Lord Salisbury, but ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... thus admonished, began undoing their fishing tackle, and soon the quartet were fishing as if their lives depended on what they caught that afternoon. And the strangest part about it was that nobody—not even the girls—said a word! Silence reigned supreme. So, although Dorothy had triumphed in showing ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... yes, I have them on; Though I'm not quite prepared. Arrange my veil; It folds too closely. That will do; retire. [RITTA retires.] So, Count Paolo, you have come, hot haste, To lead me to the church,—to have your share In my undoing? And you came, in sooth, Because they sent you? You are very tame! And if they sent, was it for ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... was her undoing. The loose chiffon sleeve she wore brushed against the glowing coals as she pushed the letter frantically between the bars; and a bright tongue of flame shot suddenly up her arm and ignited the masses of filmy lace which disguised the thinness ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... to her father the incident of the opening of the safe had given him confidence that no word of the truth regarding the past would ever pass her lips. Yet he saw that his own machinations were now likely to prove his undoing. The web which, with her ladyship's assistance, he had woven about her was now stretched to breaking-point. If it did yield, then the result must be ruin—and worse. Therefore, he was straining every effort to again reinstate her in her father's good graces and restore in her mind something ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... got one in my blanket roll," replied Bert, and before the driver could answer was busily engaged in undoing the tightly rolled blanket. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... side with her schoolhouses and churches that are trying to lift humanity heavenward the American Saloon is found lowering humanity and undoing the work these ministers and teachers have so faithfully ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... the purpose of including Alsace and Lorraine in its Federation, but even there, obeying the tendency which is world-wide, an attempt has been made at the creation of a constitutional and autonomous government. The history of the British Empire for fifty years has been a process of undoing the work of conquest. Colonies are now neither colonies nor possessions. They are independent States. Great Britain, which for centuries has made such sacrifices to retain Ireland, is now making great sacrifices in order to make her secession workable. To all political arrangements, ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... they never lifted. He came pressing up alongside his enemy—insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. Silver could have screamed. That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her, fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... establish, and whose best name is "peace." In this grade, love finds no home, but its great prototype, the lust of the flesh, stealing ever the livery of heaven, lures on tender souls to their sad undoing. ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... upon a people about to be enslaved commonly makes them the agents of their own undoing. The time had now come for the destruction of the last vestiges of liberty in Mantua, and the Mantuans, in their assembly of the Four Hundred and Ninety, voted full power into the hands of the destroyer. That ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... the master of the house returned from the mosque and entering the saloon, shut the door. I looked out from the window and saw this barber (God's malison on him!) sitting over against the door, and said, 'How did this devil find me out?' At this moment, as God had decreed it for my undoing, it befell that a slave-girl belonging to the master of the house committed some offence, for which he beat her. She cried out, and a male slave came in to deliver her, whereupon the Cadi beat him also, and he too cried out. The cursed barber concluded that it was I he was beating and fell to ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... Connie eagerly, lifting her hands in the belief that we were on the point of undoing the bandage ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... and a heavy rain combined to the undoing of the strollers. Majestically the dark clouds rolled up, outspread like a pall, and the land lay beneath the ban of a persistent downpour. People remained indoors, for the most part, and the only signs of life Barnes saw from the windows of the hotel were the landlord's Holderness breed ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... one reason why the recipients could not bear to let them go back. She was a lady of large wealth, and she had established a kennel of real Bostons, presided over by an expert kennel-maid, and would have become a genuine help to the breed, but "pictures" were her undoing. ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... had well dined, I gathered up this basketful. Methought the more I cast mine eye upon the whole discourse, the more I saw lie in it. Wherefore setting myself to a more narrow search, through frequent prayer to God, what first with doing, and then with undoing, and after that with doing again, I ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Providence or Fairy Godmothers should not be conceited. A self-made man may be proud of his money, but his son may not. Pride in what has been given freely to you is an empty pride, and she was prouder of her beauty than a poet is of his odes—it was her undoing in the end. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... great-uncle, from whom he had inherited his title, had killed the grandfather of Miss Chaworth in a duel, lent a romantic tinge to the matter—the boy was doing a sort of penance, and in one of his poems hints at the undoing of the sin of his kinsman by the lifelong devotion that he will bestow. This calling up the past, and incautious revealing of the fact that the ancestor Chaworth could not hold his own with a Byron, but allowed himself to be run through ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... There she was, undoing her hair to wash it, with her arms out through the sleeve-holes of her smock. White as the snow of one night were the two hands, soft and even, and red as foxglove were the two clear-beautiful cheeks. Dark as the back of a stag-beetle the two eyebrows. Like a shower of pearls were the teeth in her ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... alive to the lack of dignity of one who kicked against the pricks. He said to himself that if he could not marry Rose, if he could not ask her why, he must accept his fate, not attack it to his own undoing, nor even deplore it to ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... for Isabinda, her Father's Humour is implacable; and how far his Jealousie may transport him to her Undoing, shocks my ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... not go even so far as this. He certainly would have ruled out "an innate propensity to extreme hazards," for in his judgment it was this innate propensity which led Napoleon to abuse the higher form to his own undoing. So entirely indeed does history, no less than theory, fail to support the idea of the one answer, that it would seem that even in Germany a reaction to Clausewitz's real teaching is beginning. In expounding it Von Caemmerer ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... the old woman, undoing the iron hasp with a trembling hand. The door flew open, and there entered a man of a middling stature, and of a handsome but melancholy countenance. He was clad in the Circassian dress: the water trickled down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... time things have changed, my brother. Then the English were very much on the watch, now they sleep. Then there were no roads, or very bad ones, and before an army could reach the plains the whole empire would have been wakened. Now, for their own undoing, they have made roads up to the very foot of yon mountains, and there is a new railway down the Indus through Kohistan waiting to carry us into the heart of the Punjab. They seek out inventions for others ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Besides losing the terrible and specific task of teaching Tony his lessons, the amiable lady had lost the general duty of keeping Tony in order, putting right what Tony had put wrong, and, generally, undoing what Tony did. She also missed painfully those little daily attentions to her hands and shins, which were rendered necessary in consequence of Tony's activity with his nails and the toes of his boots, to say nothing of his teeth. For many weeks past—it seemed to her years—Miss ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... did not care for it, and so he had thrown it away. Perhaps he forgot what he had done; but his sin found him out, as our sins are sure to find each of us out. The day came when he wanted his birthright and could not have it, and found no place for repentance—that is, no chance of undoing what he had done—though he sought it carefully with tears. He had sown, and he must reap; he had made his bed, and he must lie on it. And so must Jacob ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... Texas steer of a buzzing deer fly. His guns rattled in a short burst and the balloon exploded with a terrific blast of flame and smoke. Yancey's plane rocked perilously. His inexperience in "busting balloons" had come near being his own undoing. But he righted his plane, somehow escaped the hail of shot and steel all around him and came plunging back down the road filled with fear-stricken men and plunging horses, ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... first with their leader," Alice replied, and ere Claib suspected her intention she was undoing the fastenings of a side door, bidding him bolt it after her as soon as she was ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... enough here, God knows! but not quite so sunk that moments, Sure tho' seldom, are denied us, when the spirit's true endowments Stand out plainly from its false ones, and apprise it if pursuing Or the right way or the wrong way, to its triumph or undoing. ...
— English Satires • Various
... the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off the moment he stops. Mr. Pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and looks about him with great curiosity; perceiving which, the coachman informs Mr. Pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was market-day ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... him in great perplexity, for if his heart beat high with joy at the idea of a romantic adventure, his shoulders still reminded him painfully of the beating he had received in a certain park at dead of night, and he remembered with a groan how he had been lured on to his own undoing. Was this another snare spread for him by some envious wretch who begrudged him his brilliant success that evening, and was jealous of the marked favour he had found in the eyes of the fair ladies of Poitiers? ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... speakers was the Antiguan. His arguments were so clever it was obvious that he was well and widely read. His absolute understanding of the crowd and his witty repartee used frequently to cause his opponents to lose their tempers, and that was always their undoing. The crowd as a rule was very fair and could easily distinguish arguments from abuse. Thus, on one Sunday the debate was as to whether nature was God. The atheist representative was a very loud-voiced demagogue, who when angry ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... understood. It wasn't the temptations of Starkfield that had been Mr. Royall's undoing; it was the thought of losing her. He was a dreadfully "lonesome" man; she had made that out because she was so "lonesome" herself. He and she, face to face in that sad house, had sounded the depths of isolation; and though she felt no particular affection ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... he innocently relates what has happened, and the father warns him that fiends in this fair disguise strive to tempt hermits to their undoing. The next time the father is absent the temptress, watching her opportunity, returns, and persuades the boy to accompany her to her 'Hermitage' which she assures him, is far more beautiful than his own. So soon as Rishyacringa is safely on board the ship sails, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... fierce hunger of the male, increasing in strength through the long course of time, which places him in woman's power. Man is the slave of woman, often when least he thinks so, and still woman uses her power, even like the spider, not infrequently, for his undoing. ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... the sight of the gaunt woman with the red hair who had been the senorita's jailer in the castle. She was apparently asleep on one of the divans, but Jim would have much rather seen anyone else on guard than this redoubtable woman whose vigilance had been his undoing before. It might have been possible to have outwitted or defeated a man, but he really was in some awe ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... ceased when we rose from table. If by bad luck two or three noises occurred at dinner—and our excessive anxiety in the matter was sometimes our undoing—Mr. Pulitzer was so upset that he would pass a sleepless night. This in its turn meant a day during which his tortured body made itself master of his mind, and plunged him into a state of ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... ahead, a narrow ledge notched in naked simplicity against the precipice. Things look better slightly veiled; besides, it is more decent, even in a path. In this case the shamelessness was earnest of the undoing. For on reaching the point in view and turning it I stood confronted by a sight sorry indeed. The path beyond had vanished. Far below, out of sight over the edge, lay the torrent; unscalable the cliff rose above; and a line of fossil ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... to his beloved ruins was the cause of his undoing. One spring morning, when a late frost had made the grass unusually slippery, just as he was expounding to an interested audience how the Danes used to shoot "arrers through them little slits of windies ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... look into the mare's glazing eyes to tell him what he had done. He had killed her. The first really honest act of her life had led to the unfortunate creature's own undoing. Her lean ewe neck was broken, as were both ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... night and calling him. He could hear her now, and hear that wondrous savage music. Had it been real? Had he dreamed? Or had it been some witch-vision of the night, come to tempt and lure him to his undoing? Where was that black and flaming cabin? Where was the girl—the soul that had called him? She must have been real; she had to live and dance and sing; he must again look into the mystery of her great eyes. And he sat up in sudden determination, and, lo! gazed ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... conquest of Nature, and I can quite understand that ancient libertine refusing to co-operate in her own undoing. And I can quite understand, too, my father's preference for what he called an illustrative experiment, which was simply an arrangement of the apparatus in front of the class with nothing whatever by way of material, and the Bunsen burner clean and cool, and then a slow luminous description ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... into his blunt bull-dog pipe as he supervised the undoing of the smothering fabric and complacently looked at ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... Slattin, a plausible rogue, who, in justice, should be immured in Sing Sing, was chosen out, was enslaved by those lovely mysterious eyes, was taking to his soul the lies which fell from those perfect lips, triumphant in a conquest that must end in his undoing; deeming, poor fool, that for love of him this pearl of the Orient was about to betray her master, to resign herself ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... lesson, building a tradition of rulership and authority that was handed down from father to son; acquiring a vision of world organization and world power that gave them confidence to go forward to their own undoing. The masters of public life in Rome were such people; the present masters of British economic and political affairs are ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... beforehand, in the heart of God, who put it into your heart and nature to pray. Long before the want or the sin, the beseeching for help or for forgiveness was anticipated; provision was made for the undoing or the counteracting of the evil,—the healing of the wrong,—just as it should be longed for in the needing and repenting soul. The more law you have, the more all ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
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