"Ruinous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have good proprietors; and it is felt to be the interest of both to adjust their terms amicably among themselves, without a reference to a third and superior party, which is always costly and commonly ruinous.[6] ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... contrary to the principles of humanity and justice, and to the spirit of the British constitution; and that the state of slavery, which followed it, however mitigated, was a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist. He deprecated delay in this business, as well for the sake of planters as of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... relatively sure means of providing against them, and these consist of alliances, strategic frontiers, and the permanent disablement of the potential enemy. On one or other of these alternative lines the resettlement must be devised. To combine them would be ruinous. Now of what practical use is a league of nations devoid of supernational forces and faced by a numerous, virile, and united race, smarting under a sense of injustice, thirsting for the opportunities for development denied to it, but granted to nations which it despises as inferior? Would ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... discuss whether Catholicism is true or is a lie; you consider it a ruinous doctrine which produces decadence. I have been told that you have ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... kind. My hobby this time is a very robust animal, and will want a good deal of feeding if he is to keep up his strength. But to come to plain language, I am collecting subscriptions for a working-men's coffee-house in Redbury—a British Workman they call it. You know, I dare say, that two ruinous old houses of mine in the market-place are being pulled down. Now, I am going to give the ground which one of them stands on for the new coffee-house. It is a capital situation, just in the centre of the town. I shall want funds, ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... wasted the frame, poisoned the sources of enjoyment, and entailed an intolerable mental load that scarcely knew cessation"; the poet himself called it "the accursed drug." In 1814 Cottle wrote him a strong protest against this terrible and ruinous habit, entreating him to renounce it. Coleridge said in reply, "You have poured oil into the raw and festering wound of an old friend, Cottle, but it is oil of vitriol!" He accounts for the "accursed habit" by stating that he had taken to it first to obtain relief from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Guildford's historians, observes that the inhabitants, "desirous of improving" the church, had recently repaired it at a cost of L750. He then adds, reflectively, that "As the arches and pillars which supported the steeple were then taken away, it was soon after supposed to be in a very ruinous condition." On April 18, 1740, an order was given for the church to be inspected. On the 19th it was inspected, and the steeple was reported to be very unsafe. On the 20th, therefore, which was Sunday, service was performed ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... that "the eye is often bigger than the belly," is often verified by the ridiculous vanity of those who wish to make an appearance above their fortune. Nothing can be more ruinous to real comfort than the too common custom of setting out a table, with a parade and a profusion, unsuited not only to the circumstances of the hosts, but to the number of the guests; or more fatal to true hospitality, than the multiplicity of dishes which luxury has made fashionable ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... These words were ruinous to Musa. The table had revenged its finder. If Musa had lied in this case, he had lied in all. So held the angry caliph, who turned upon him with bitter abuse, calling him thief and liar, and swearing by Allah ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... bearing his elastic frame lamentably. A sad or a culprit air did not befit him: one reckoned up his foibles and errors when seeing him under a partly beaten aspect. At least, I did; not my dear aunt, who was compassionate of him, however thoroughly she condemned his ruinous extravagance, and the shifts and evasions it put him to. She feared, that instead of mending the difficulty, he had postponed merely to exaggerate it in the squire's mind; and she was now of opinion that the bringing him down to meet the squire was very bad ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Stadtholderate, which is inseparable from it. Every good Dutch patriot must feel persuaded of the truth of this. All the neighboring powers appear equally convinced of it, and are able to see that dissensions, not less dangerous than inexcusable, the consequences of which may prove not less ruinous to this Republic, than they have been to other States under similar circumstances, subsist and constantly increase in violence in the bosom of the United Provinces. These powers are all equally interested in the maintenance ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... thought out loud. In her boudoir, he dropped his mask of habitual dissimulation, and his vices displayed themselves, at ease, as his limbs in a bath. He felt himself so powerless against her, that he never essayed to struggle. She possessed him. Once or twice he attempted to firmly oppose her ruinous caprices; but she had made him pliable as the osier. Under the dark glances of this girl, his strongest resolutions melted more quickly than snow beneath an April sun. She tortured him; but she had also the power to make him forget all by a ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... of the food, and it is proper that what is left should furnish refreshment for the living.[673] The funeral festivities are sometimes protracted, and become occasions of enjoyment to the circle of kinsfolk, in some cases at a ruinous expense to the family of the deceased, as is true now sometimes of Irish and other wakes. The honor of the family is involved, and this fact, together with the natural desire for pleasure, has contributed ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... lauding some Richard Cromwell's choice of a quiet country life, before the turbulent honours of a proffered Protectorate; while Thales, with his all but old English proverb of "more haste, less speed," would apply admirably to Sultan Mahmoud's ruinous reforms; or to the actual injury gulled Britain has done to the condition of negroes in general by a vastly too precipitate abolition of the slave-trade: a vile evil, indeed, but a cancer of too long creeping to be cured in a day, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to do with myself I sauntered along by where there was a slip of shade, and entered the south side of the palace—an old half-ruinous part; and after going first into one, and then into another of the bare empty rooms, I picked out what seemed to be the coolest corner I could find, sat down with my back propped against the wall, filled and lit my pipe, and then putting things together in ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... door and with glazed windows, and the key was kept at an appointed place in the town, whence any one might fetch it. But the servants and peasant girls were soon too lazy to go for the key; they burst open the lock, and smashed the windows, so that now the hut has a very ruinous appearance, and affords but little protection against the weather. How much alike mankind are every where, and how seldom they do right, except when it gives them no trouble, and then, unfortunately, there is not much merit to be ascribed to them, as their doing ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... Strafford: time shows. Perish Body and spirit! Fool to feign a doubt, Pretend the scrupulous and nice reserve Of one whose prowess shall achieve the feat! What share have I in it? Do I affect To see no dismal sign above your head When God suspends his ruinous thunder there? Strafford is doomed. Touch him ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the winding up of our catastrophe. If it lasts more than one year, it seems even to moderate West Indians to be totally ruinous to them. What seems to affect them most by the passing of this Bill is not the fear of starving, which they have their apprehensions of, but the danger there is of their being taken on false pretences by the men of war that are to protect them, or by the ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... to John Ivy the idea of collecting her pieces also, or at any rate of making up a book of her rhymes by adding many in manuscript to the few that had seen the light, for she had been able to get no great number into print. A ruinous charge was made for costs of publication; a few reviews noticed her poor little volume; but nobody talked of it, nobody bought it, and it fell dead in a fortnight—if it had ever ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... She had already fought and won her battle against the changes Time had brought about, and her mind no longer recoiled from the ruinous discolorations of decay. She had been helped in this battle by a strong ally, the love engendered for her own daughter while she was still ignorant of her identity. She had found her outward seeming a stepping-stone to a true conception of the octogenarian, last seen in the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Dale walked into the Black Cat Tavern and made a ruinous bargain with Tate for the use of his horse and sled for an indefinite time. "I'm going up into the woods," he explained, "I may be gone a week, a month, I cannot tell; when I reach Camp 7, I'll send your ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... a far uglier man; Herrick never met or never knew them: or if he did both, some manlier feeling would revolt, and he preferred starvation. Drenched with rains, broiling by day, shivering by night, a disused and ruinous prison for a bedroom, his diet begged or pilfered out of rubbish heaps, his associates two creatures equally outcast with himself, he had drained for months the cup of penitence. He had known what it was to be resigned, what it was to break forth in a childish fury of rebellion ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had ever after their first establishment, continued apparently on the most friendly terms with the Indians; but on the part of the savages, friendship had only been feigned, to lull the whites into a ruinous security. When this end was attained, they too were made to feel the bitterness of savage enmity. On the 2d of January 1791, a party of Indians came to the Big Bottom, and commenced an indiscriminate murder of the inhabitants; fourteen of whom were killed and five taken prisoners. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... by the Indians, which, by a triumph of literary ingenuity, was ascribed to the ease and abundance with which the Secretary of the Treasury had caused money to circulate. But a far stronger weapon for their malignant use was the ruinous speculation which had maddened the country since the opening of the Bank of the United States. It was not enough that the Bank was a monarchical institution, a machine for the corruption of the Government, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... to see the Colosseum by moonlight. It is the monarch, the majesty of all ruins; there is nothing like it. All the associations of the place, too, give it the most impressive character. When you enter within this stupendous circle of ruinous walls and arches, and grand terraces of masonry, rising one above another, you stand upon the arena of the old gladiatorial combats and Christian martyrdom; and as you lift your eyes to the vast amphitheater, you meet, in imagination, the eyes of a hundred thousand Romans, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and it seemed that her mind, so clear since she woke, was clouded as to all before that; only the feeling of some great trouble, some dusty hurry, some ruinous failure haunted her. Also for the first time that ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... truth, he could not kill in his mind the hope that the floor would yield. The greatness of the resulting catastrophe fascinated him. He knew that he should be disappointed if the catastrophe did not occur. That it would mean ruinous damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds, and enormous worry, did not influence him. His reason did not influence him, nor his personal danger. He saw a large hook in the wall to which he could cling when the exquisite crash ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... and desecrated it by their own inferior workmanship, has nature been able to effect a lodgment; and in the breaches of this fortress, which is but a thing of yesterday as compared with the monument, and yet is far more ruinous, she has planted bushes, trees, and thick festoons of ivy, as if laying her quiet finger upon the angry passions of man, and obliterating the memory of his evil deeds by her own fair ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... out. Was it true? asked every man; and every man replied, with trembling lips, that it was a lie put out by some unscrupulous "short" interest seeking to cover itself. In another quarter of an hour news came of a sudden and ruinous collapse of "Yankees" in London at the close of the Stock Exchange day. It was enough. New York had still four hours' trading in front of her. The strategy of pointing to Manderson as the savior and warden of the market had recoiled upon ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... not Salvarsan, but sound moral hygiene, the first foundation of which is the discontinuance of our habit of telling not only the comparatively harmless lies that we know we ought not to tell, but the ruinous lies that we foolishly think we ought ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... Norman sovereignty lost, and who at one time showed the white feather in a very unNorman-like manner, and in quite the reverse fashion to that adopted by Henri IV. at Ivry. At length he recovered his courage, and, delivering battle, he won a complete victory, which was ruinous to the vanquished. They were exterminated, and Riulph, their leader, was captured, and blinded by William's orders. It is supposed he died under the operation. William's cruelty is attributed to his earlier cowardice, and it is an old saw that no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... town now presented a ruinous and desolate aspect; both parties were concentrating their efforts in this spot, and here the combat raged with the greatest violence. Again the blast swept along, bearing before it the masses of black suffocating vapour, but in a clearer ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... granted him until the following evening. The consul, Captain Smyth of the navy, and Major Denham, attended. The latter represented, in the strongest terms, how greatly they were disappointed at the unexpected and ruinous delay, which they had experienced at Mourzouk, and requested a specific time being fixed for their proceeding to Bornou, stating also, that were the answer not satisfactory, he should proceed forthwith ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... indefiniteness, been something like searching after the locality of the north pole. We wound about among groups of islands and through passages which looked so perfectly in the state of nature that, but for a few ruinous stone chimneys on St. Joseph's, it could not be told that the foot of man had ever trod the shores. The whole voyage, from Buffalo and Detroit, had indeed been a novel and fairy scene. We were now some 350 miles north-west of the latter city. We had been a couple ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... in keeping up the reputation of the house, and yet the gardeners who supplied the kitchens complained of ruinous delays. The agents for the supply of Spanish wines sent drafts which no one honored; fishermen, whom the superintendent engaged on the coast of Normandy, calculated that if they were paid all that was due to them, the amount would enable them to retire comfortably for life; fish, which, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... days was I borne by ruinous winds over the teeming deep; but on the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lotus-eaters who eat a ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... a world gone mad with national excesses committed in the name of civilization, in reality the price of our modernization, in a final desperate effort to rally their waning fortunes stampeded their awakening masses into a ruinous interracial war in order to stave off the torch and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... word," she said. "If the Prince had not a temper, and if they were not playing for such ruinous points, I would entertain them all with these delightful confidences. By the bye, the Prince himself was once one of those who fell before your chariot wheels, was he not? Look at him now—sideways. What ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... went heedlessly, intent only on walking away her pain, over gray, brooding fields and winding slopes, and along the skirts of ruinous, dusky pine woods, curtained with fine spun purple gloom. Her dress brushed against the brittle grasses and sere ferns, and the moist night wind, loosed from wild places far away, blew ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... lose most of his money, and cursed Joe continually for having led him to build upon his grandfather's supposed wealth. Yet he ought to have known. Tradesmen do not lock up their savings in investments for their grandchildren, nor do they borrow small sums at ruinous interest of money-lending solicitors; nor do they give Bills of Sale. These general rules were probably known to Mr. Chalker. Yet he did not apply them to this particular case. The neglect of the General Rule, in fact, may lead the most astute of ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... its external beauty, proved to be ruinous within, and in the midst of the Moorish houses and courts still were visible remnants of the old Roman town that had in past ages flourished there. Like Algiers, it had narrow climbing streets, excluding sunshine, and through ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... prosper, and if he objects with full arguments, his adversaries have a perfect right to claim that he himself sets a poor example and that his psychology helps still more to increase that noisy discussion which he denounces as ruinous to the community. But in this contradictory situation the circle must be broken somewhere, and even at the risk of adding to the dangerous tumult which he condemns, the psychologist must break his silence in order to plead for silence. I shall have ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... Whether even gold or silver, if they should lessen the industry of its inhabitants, would not be ruinous to a country? And whether Spain be ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... It is inconceivable that in this age of calculators there is no one to see that France would be much more powerful if Paris were destroyed. Not only is this ill-distributed population not advantageous to the state, it is more ruinous than depopulation itself, because depopulation only gives as produce nought, and the ill-regulated addition of still more people gives a negative result. When I hear an Englishman and a Frenchman so proud of the size of their capitals, and disputing whether London or Paris ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... intervals on the upper cornice appeared a sculptured turtle. From this circumstance, the building was named "The House of Turtles." No steps lead to the terrace below or to the one above. "It stands isolated and alone, seeming to mourn over its own desolate and ruinous condition." ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... made upon him. He laid open its history step by step. He dwelt upon the various circumstances connected with the introduction of Christianity among them. He alluded to the course taken by the Christians as ruinous and disgraceful, especially in their abandonment of the religion of their fathers, and their sacrifices, and of the lands given them by the Great Spirit, for paltry considerations. As for the Black coats, Mr. Calhoun had told him at Washington four years before, ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... soul," his friend will be most happily deceived; but, he continues, "if you shall, as I expect you will at some time, be agonized and distressed, let me, who have some reason to speak with judgment on the subject, beseech you to ascribe it to the causes I have mentioned, and not to some false and ruinous suggestion of the devil." This forms the prelude to an ingenious and affectionate argument in which he labors to convince Speed of the loveliness of his betrothed and of the integrity of his own heart; a strange task, one would say, to undertake in behalf of a young ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... intended as a censure upon those whose duties, and employments, and superior talents, lead them to the capital; but to warn the thoughtless and the unoccupied from seeking distinction by frivolous imitation of fashion and ruinous ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... close by, across the glen—a little ruinous, perhaps, but we can soon repair it. Come to the window; you can see the place from here.' He pointed out a kind of thickset tower which crowned a pretty village set in orchards. 'If you care to see it we will go there when I have ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... in Roman times with an aqueduct, the arches of which, broken and ruinous, still stretch across the plain, and were destined to convey into the town the waters of the Siagnole, from a distance of about fifty miles. The arcade ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... you come to fertilizing, if I understand the agricultural authorities, you open a pit that will ultimately swallow you up, —farm and all. It is the great subject of modern times, how to fertilize without ruinous expense; how, in short, not to starve the earth to death while we get our living out of it. Practically, the business is hardly to the taste of a person of a poetic turn of mind. The details of fertilizing are not agreeable. Michael Angelo, who tried every art, and nearly every trade, never gave ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... No. 2 trim and ruddy. The former could hardly sit his mule as he trotted up to me. 'Have you seen Carrot?' he asked in a sort of groan. I said 'Good evening,' and passed on. Promptly he gasped to two native police to bring me along, and went his way forward to explore the ruinous kraal. He felt doubtful whether I was or was not Carrot, he told me afterwards. He went for the three Carrot huts at once and began to search them. There were no finds there. Then he questioned me sharply. Two of his black watch knew me by sight, and I was soon set free ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... to make a little conversation rather than have the stupid and ruinous game of coyote for ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... he was asked, told them, that a ruinous turret, lang disused, next to the clock-house, only accessible by a ladder, for the opening was on the outside, and far above the battlements, was called of old the ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... he entered the cavity. Once there, it could not be perceived by the sentinels above—it would guide him through all obstacles, preserve him through all dangers. Massive as it was, he felt convinced that the interior of the wall was in as ruinous a condition as the outside. Caution and perseverance were sufficient of themselves to insure to his efforts the speediest and ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... in taintless seas she dreaming lies, The island city, time-worn now, and gray, Her dark wharves ruinous, where once there lay Tall ships, at rest from far-sea industries. The busy hand of trade no longer plies Within her streets. In quiet court and way The grass has crept—and sun and shadows play Beneath her elms, in changing traceries; The years have claimed ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... the removal of the galilee as being an encumbrance. The roof was ruinous, the walls were in bad condition; it was "neither ornamental nor useful"; it would cost a large sum to put it into decent repair. Happily this advice was not followed. In the course of the renovation then undertaken it was discovered that the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... against France was slighter and confined to the more intelligent. Napoleon was first to begin these outrages on the rights of neutrals; but his injustice was practically felt only on land; while England was first to introduce the paper blockade, a measure ruinous to American merchants. This was finally done on May 16, 1806, when Great Britain announced a "blockade of the coast rivers and ports, from the river Elbe to the port of Brest inclusive." On the 21st of November, of the same year, Napoleon in retaliation, issued a decree from ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... accomplished courtier, and totally averse from giving himself any trouble or annoyance that ingenuity could escape from, opposed the project of St. Simon with all his influence. He represented the expedient as alike dishonest and ruinous. The regent was of the same opinion, and this desperate remedy ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... perchance of time, or blest, Sad with fear or glad with comfort of the sea? Are the ruinous towers of churches fallen on rest Watched of wanderers woful now, glad once as we, When the night has all men's eyes and hearts in fee, When the soul bows down dethroned and dispossest? Yet must peace keep guard, by day's and night's decree, ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... this little schooner in which they now were at a ruinous rate, and had not been able to do even that until he had pledged himself to pay all damages in case of loss. Governor Shirley had seized the opportunity to send dispatches several days earlier than he had intended. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... presaged ill to those against whom they marched. Besides, eclipses of the luminaries always signify a change of affairs, and therefore some change was certainly signified, either to Carthage, which was in such a flourishing condition, or to them whose affairs were in a very ruinous state." ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... considerable peninsula: very bare and grassy; haunted by sheep and, at night and morning, by the piercing cries of the shepherds; wandered over by a few wild goats; and on its sea-front indented with long, clamorous caves, and faced with cliffs of the colour and ruinous outline of an old peat-stack. In one of these echoing and sunless gullies we saw, clustered like sea-birds on a splashing ledge, shrill as sea-birds in their salutation to the passing boat, a group of fisherwomen, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and irremediably overtake him if he had the hardihood to carry out his wicked purpose against Antonio and Marianna's peace and happiness. He depicted in startling colours the folly and madness of amorous old men, who call down upon their own heads the most ruinous mischief which Heaven can inflict upon a man, since all the love which might have fallen to their share is lost, and instead hatred and contempt shoot their fatal darts at them from ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... professionally employed as a forester in Russia, describes the consequences of the general war upon the woods in that country as already most disastrous, and as threatening still more ruinous evils. The river Volga, the life artery of Russian internal commerce, is drying up from this cause, and the great Muscovite plains are fast advancing to a desolation like that of Persia.—Der ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... golden atmosphere, suffusing a whole picture with an evening glow, enriching the lavish foreground, and touching into romantic beauty headland after headland, that ran out, covered with delicate woodland, into the tranquil lake; those ruinous temples with a quiet flight of birds about them; the mysterious figures of men emerging from the woods on the edges of the water, bent serenely on some simple business, had the magical charm; and then those faint mountains closing the horizon, all rounded with the golden haze ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Very likely he had not a notion as to what the whole thing meant, and only thought that he was doing his best to finance his country along the road to wealth. But the fact remains that by these actions he made his Government a party to the proceedings that were so unfortunate for it and so ruinous to the holders ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... are not worth scrutinizing. A man drifts. The most successful men have drifted into their successes. I don't want to tell you that this is a success. You wouldn't believe me if I did. It isn't; neither is it the ruinous failure it looks. It proves nothing, unless perhaps some hidden weakness in my character—and even ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Mr. Yorke's epithets). Madmen like Pitt, demons like Castlereagh, mischievous idiots like Perceval, were the tyrants, the curses of the country, the destroyers of her trade. It was their infatuated perseverance in an unjustifiable, a hopeless, a ruinous war, which had brought the nation to its present pass. It was their monstrously oppressive taxation, it was the infamous "Orders in Council"—the originators of which deserved impeachment and the scaffold, if ever public men did—that hung ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... we have been following, ill defined as it is in the grassy fields, leads us at length under a large ruinous portico—a relic of goodness knows what olden days—which still rises here, quite isolated, altogether strange and unexpected, in the midst of the green expanse of pasture and tillage. We had seen ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... that a party has committed itself to a particular measure which its opponents believe to be in a high degree dangerous or even ruinous to the country. In that case it becomes a matter of supreme importance to keep this party out of office, or, if they are in office, to keep them in a position of permanent debility till this dangerous project is abandoned. Under such circumstances ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... pictures, cousin; I have a taste for pictures,—a ruinous passion, but we all have ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... the division of labor as a unalterable law; it sees that the distribution of wealth, founded on the division of labor, is wrong and ruinous; and it affirms that its activity, which recognizes the division of labor, will lead people to bliss. The result is, that some people make use of the labor of others; but that, if they shall make use of the labor of others for a very long period of time, ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... to believe his credit as sound as that of the Government whose bonds he had handled. When he collapsed, overloaded with Northern Pacific securities, in which his confidence was enthusiastic, the panic was so acute that the New York Stock Exchange closed its doors for ten days, to prevent the ruinous prices that forced sales might have created. Thirty or more banking houses were drawn down by the crash within forty-eight hours. Others followed in all the business centers, while trade stood still through the paralysis of ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... and in America, in my time, it was almost at the peril of reputation, both for model and sculptor, that an artist employed the living model, even if he could procure it. Now, I understand, a few models may be obtained in New York; but they are so rare and so expensive, that it is almost ruinous to employ them. It costs two or three dollars there to secure a model which here may be had for half a day for forty cents. There is no want of models here; but their history is a sad one, and makes one often ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... with soldiers, and Congress was unanimously in favor of it. Great was the amazement of his fellow-members when the young member from the Nineteenth Ohio district rose in his seat and earnestly opposed it. He objected that the policy was ruinous, involving immense expense, while effecting little good. He claimed that the country had a right to the service of every one of its children at such a crisis, without hire and ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... verbatim.] 'I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motion of things, and I solemnly protest that a pecuniary reward of twenty thousand pounds a year would not induce me to undergo what I do, and, after all, perhaps, lose my character.' Again: 'Our affairs are in a more distressed, ruinous, and deplorable condition than they have been since the commencement of the war,' and he adds that unless congress comes valiantly to his assistance at once the country will sink into irretrievable ruin. Again he writes: 'Every idea you ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... partially ruinous, but quite habitable. However, his father had built a comfortable house in the garden, at ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... with golden wings aloft doth flie, Above the reach of ruinous decay, And with brave plumes doth beate the azure skie, Admir'd of base-borne men from farre away: Then who so will with vertuous deeds assay 425 To mount to heaven, on Pegasus must ride, And with ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... a child, from the roof-tree diurnal, A scene of distraction or dullness severe, With the longing of youth for diversion and cheer, That comes like the spring-time refreshing and vernal, Goes out on a ruinous, reckless career, Returning, if ever, not many ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... took them in, made one slight sound like a moan of remonstrance at the mention of the place, but again recollecting herself, led the way along a stone passage, into which a flight of stairs descended into the apsidal chancel, roughly boarded off from the rest of the church. It was a ruinous, desolate place, and Berenger looked round in dismay for some place on which to lay down his almost unconscious burthen. The lady bent her head and signed towards the stone sedilia in the wall; then, after two ineffectual essays to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rapid in all his resolutions and motions, strode stoutly down the street, and arrived at the Manse, which was, as we have already described it, all but absolutely ruinous. The total desolation and want of order about the door, would have argued the place uninhabited, had it not been for two or three miserable tubs with suds, or such like sluttish contents, which were left there, that those who broke their shins ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... and boys know that when sedan-chairs were discontinued, the old cadies sank into ruinous poverty, and became synonymous with roughs. The word was brought to London by James Hannay, who frequently used ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... little to the westward of the Cathedral Church. The building, with its site and garden, having been vested in the Crown, when Episcopacy was abolished, were granted in the year 1791, for the purpose of erecting an Infirmary; and the ancient but ruinous building was then removed.—(Caledonia, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... of the summer-house is highly ornamented with Ionic pilasters, and taken as a whole is quaintly ruinous. It is interesting to discover that it was utility that led to the elevation of the mound, within which was an ice-house! And to get at the ice the slaves went through a trap-door in the floor of this ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... was still in this state of suffering, news came that the plague was approaching Wittenberg, nay, had actually broken out in the town. It is well known how this fearful scourge had repeatedly raged in Germany, and how ruinous it had been, from the panic which preceded and accompanied it. The university, from fear of the epidemic, was now ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... synonymous. All that he avoided paying them he regarded as a just restitution to himself; and all the sums which were struck off from their accounts he regarded as so much deducted from a theft. The less a Minister paid out of his budget the more Bonaparte was pleased with him; and this ruinous system of economy can alone explain the credit which Decres so long enjoyed at the expense of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... hazards. Not only does she risk her personal happiness, from his vicious conduct, but she exposes her own character. Who can tell that, instead of being reformed by her, the husband may not entice her into his own sins, or into those equally ruinous? Will she calmly commit herself to the talons of the vulture, in the hope of taming his ferocity, and changing entirely his habits? The experiment is one which no woman of ordinary ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Dear Mamma: My foreboding about steering was on the last day nearly verified by an accident which was more deplorable than culpable the effects of which would have been ruinous had not the presence of mind of No. 7 in the boat rescued us from the very jaws of defeat. The scene is one which never can fade from my remembrance and will be connected always with the gentlemanly conduct of the crew in neither using opprobrious language nor gesture towards ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... and sinews by which antichristianism remains; and were these dispirited, the whole building would quickly become a ruinous heap. ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... before she slept. The arrival of her father had turned the scale decidedly in favor of Mr. Arnault, for the latter, without revealing his transaction with Mr. Muir, had whispered to Mr. Wildmere his conviction that Henry Muir was borrowing at ruinous interest. This information accorded with the broker's previous knowledge, and he was eager that his daughter should decide ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... colony was designed to be a barrier to South Carolina, against the Spanish settlement at Augustine they imagined that negroes would rather weaken than strengthen it, and that such poor colonists would run into debt, and ruin themselves by purchasing them. Rum was judged pernicious to health, and ruinous to the infant settlement. A free trade with Indians was considered as a thing that might have a tendency to involve the people in quarrels and troubles with the powerful savages, and expose them to danger ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... fancied that wonderful adventures, sudden changes, and strokes of good fortune might possibly be awaiting him in the mysterious future, into which he fain would peer, and he would inevitably lose the chance of them all if he returned to his ruinous chateau. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... our tents the sands stretch level and far, Around this little oasis of Tamarind trees. A curious, Eastern fragrance fills the breeze From the ruinous Temple garden ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... have just used the term "graceful negligence": whether it be graceful, or not, is a matter of taste; but the uncomfortable and ruinous disorder and dilapidation of the Italian cottage is one of observation. The splendor of the climate requires nothing more than shade from the sun, and occasionally shelter from a violent storm: the outer arcade ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... to predict, or even to suggest, such ruinous consequences to the moonlit dreams of that happy pair. Time alone can unfold the mysterious realities of life. I will, therefore, pursue the windings of their course, and note down the various incidents and events as they are struck out, like the sparks from the heated ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... I approved of the deposition of King Richard; and indeed I have not, like Lord Grey and many other nobles, among them the Percys, been a warm supporter of King Henry's cause. I hold myself altogether neutral, in that matter. I saw that nothing would be more ruinous, for the country, than that a boy like my nephew should mount the throne; and had a party been formed to make him king, instead of Henry, I would have taken no share in it. Nevertheless, there is no getting over the fact that, by right, the Earl of March is King of England, and there is no saying ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... of European statesmen on the international difficulty which has sprung so unexpectedly upon us. While it justifies the surrender on the ground of technical error, it utters a solemn warning in the name of Europe, that, if the demand were a mere pretext to force us into a ruinous war, such a proceeding will not again be tolerated. This pamphlet, entitled Une Parole de Paix, is the article which appeared in the Journal des Debats, December 11, 12, and 13, since published as a brochure, ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... House, for that was the name of the hotel, was a place of fallen fortunes, like the town. It was now given up to labourers, and partly ruinous. At dinner there was the ordinary display of what is called in the west a TWO-BIT HOUSE: the tablecloth checked red and white, the plague of flies, the wire hencoops over the dishes, the great variety and invariable ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... palace was not unlike the entrance to some of the closes in Edinburgh, and the court within reminded me of Smithfield, in London; but it was not surrounded by such lofty buildings, nor in any degree of comparison so well constructed. We ascended a ruinous staircase, which led to an open gallery, where three or four hundred of the Vizier's Albanian guards were lounging. In an antechamber, which opened from the gallery, a number of officers were smoking, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... Madame Eustace who had been hidden in their cottages. I found two or three old people who still remembered her wanderings when she kept the cows and knitted like a peasant girl among them. I was even shown the ruinous chamber where my aunt Thistlewood was born, and the people were enchanted to hear how much the dear old lady had told me of them, and of their ways, and their ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little Schulenburg; the light of him snuffed out in this manner on a sudden. It is said he had thoughts of resigning, so indignant was he: no doubt he went home to Landsberg gloomily reflective, with the pipe-clay of his mind in such a ruinous condition. But there was no serious anger, on Friedrich's part; and he consoled his little Schulenburg soon after, by expediting some promotion he had intended him. "Terribly proud young Majesty this," ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... rooms, explaining that each was scented with a different perfume. Although Lawrence could smell nothing, they claimed that one room had the odor of ambergris—another of roses—and a third of jasmine;—at length they came to a large and particularly ruinous room. "This," they said, "has the finest scent of all—the smell of the wind and the sun." I last saw Colonel Lawrence in Paris, whither he had brought the son of the King of the Hedjaz to ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... replied the old gentleman. "You know that at present these shares are scarcely saleable except at a ruinous discount, and it would be a pity to part with them just now, seeing that there is some hope of improvement at this time. There is nothing for it but to sell my estate, and I don't think there will ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... got the people's ears; fixed the attention of the leaders. Scant notice could emancipation extort from men who had to repair the ravages of an exhausting war, reconstruct shattered fortunes, restore civil society in parts tumbling into ruinous disorder. The instinct of self-preservation was altogether too masterful for the moral starveling. It succumbed to circumstances, content to obtain an occasional sermon, an annual address, a few scattered societies to keep a human glow in the bosom ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... so many generations between our family and the business firm of which you are a member, considering too the peculiar circumstances in which the owners of land find themselves at this moment, and the ruinous loss—to put questions of sentiment aside—that must be inflicted by such sale upon the owner of property, more consideration might have been shown. However, it is useless to try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or to get blood from a stone, so I suppose that ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... pleased look was in her eyes as they rested on trees and shrubs which lined the half ruinous stone walls on either side. "Everything seems so alive and glad ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... the worst foes to garments and the greatest care is needed to remove such spots from delicate fabrics. If not done at once, the dust and grease together often prove ruinous. When the color and fabric will not be injured by it, warm water and soap is the best agent, otherwise absorbents may be used. French chalk or magnesia powdered, placed upon the spot, and allowed to remain ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... analogues, but is here localized on the Douglas Burn, a tributary of Yarrow on the left bank. The St. Mary's Kirk would be that now ruinous, on St. Mary's Loch, the chapel burned by the Lady of ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... seen them in great crowds waiting outside of a monastery for their dinner, which consists of huge bowls of porridge given by the monks. Can any thing be more ruinous ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... the impression which I had felt the night before, of there being too many trees at Blackwater. The house is stifled by them. They are, for the most part, young, and planted far too thickly. I suspect there must have been a ruinous cutting down of timber all over the estate before Sir Percival's time, and an angry anxiety on the part of the next possessor to fill up all the gaps as thickly and rapidly as possible. After looking about me in front ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... some compensation for her disappointment at seeing you earlier. So I thinks to myself, thinks I, now what is there that Leah would like? It must be something appropriate, of course, and it mustn't be of any value, because I can't afford it. It's a ruinous business getting engaged; the worst bit of business I ever did in all my born days." Here Sam winked facetiously at the company. "And I thought and thought of what was the cheapest thing I could get ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... house dating from the 17th or 18th century, you have something fairly rare and it is worth reclaiming even though very extensive replacements are needed. In Fairfield, Connecticut, for example, there is the Ogden House, built before 1710. Its present owner paid $4,000 for it in what seemed to be ruinous condition. Its renovation cost fully $12,000; but finished, this old salt box house is so unusual that more than one buyer is ready and waiting to pay ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... 1623. There is no direct evidence that it was designed by Inigo Jones; on the other hand, there is a record in existence which testifies that the Society intended to employ him. John Clarke was the builder. There was an older chapel in a ruinous condition, which there is reason to believe had been that of the Bishops, as it was dedicated to St. Richard of Chichester. Mr. Spilsbury quotes one of the Harleian manuscripts, written in or about 1700, in which Inigo is named as the architect, and Vertue's engraving of 1751 also mentions ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... of Pius V., outside the Porta S. Pancrazio. Although the crypt had never been entered, and promised to be very rich, no excavations were attempted, owing to the dangerous condition of the rock. One object only was extracted from the ruinous cavern; a polychrome cameo of marvellous beauty (di meravigliosa bellezza) representing a Bacchanalian. The stone measured sixteen inches in length by ten in width. It was ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... to snake and beast, insect and fever, and was presently carried away. In many places down the river he had been manifestly driven back, this deserted creek or that preserved the name of a casa, and here and there ruinous white walls and a shattered tower enforced the lesson. The puma, the jaguar, were ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... children, in consequence of Madame de Montespan having artfully entrapped the famous Mademoiselle de Moutpensier to make over her immense fortune to him as her heir after her death, as the price of liberating her husband from imprisonment in the Bastille, and herself from a ruinous prosecution, for having contracted this marriage contrary to the express commands of her royal cousin, Louis XIV.—Vide Histoire de Louis XIV. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the flattery of a funeral sermon. She was, in a few words, the stay of all my affairs; the centre of all my enterprises; the engine that, by her prudence, reduced me to that happy compass I was in, from the most extravagant and ruinous project that filled my head, and did more to guide my rambling genius than a mother's tears, a father's instructions, a friend's counsel, or all my own reasoning powers could do. I was happy in listening to her, and in being moved by her entreaties; and to the last degree desolate ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... from a roving life, and changed into a toiling peon, afterwards to revolt against a system of slavery that even religion failed to make endurable; the neophyte turning his hand against his priestly instructor, equally his oppressor; revolt followed by a deluge of blood, with ruinous devastation, until the walls of both mission and military cuartel are left tenantless, and the redskin has ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... best to serve the turn." {96c} This was before the Perth riot had been reported (May 26) by Cecil to Throckmorton. Was d'Elboeuf intended to direct the persecution? The theory has its attractions, but Henri, just emerged with maimed forces from a ruinous war, knew that a persecution which served Cecil's "turn" did not serve his. To persecute in Scotland would mean renewed war with England, and could not be contemplated. If Sir James Melville can be trusted for once, the Constable, about June 1, told him, in ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... a dictionary, but he could at least reflect that he had done his best to learn from the drama that it is a gross impertinence almost anywhere. He had knocked at the door of every theatre in London, and, at a ruinous expense, had multiplied type-copies of Nona Vincent to replace the neat transcripts that had descended into the managerial abyss. His play was not even declined—no such flattering intimation was given him that it had been read. What the managers would do for Mrs. Alsager ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... little deserted house in a courtyard, where Richard III lived for a while, when he was young. Few people know about it, or are taken to see it. But it alone would be enough to make the Castle interesting if there were nothing else. Only a few empty, echoing, half-ruinous rooms there are, with a queer chimney or two to give comfort; but Richard's enemies made it a charge against him that he lived in Carlisle Castle, splendidly housed in sinful luxury. What a pity all the tales against him were not ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... pest of the trees, drought of the waters, snares of the birds, and the hunter's net of the wild beasts, but ruinous to man is the love of a delicate maiden. O father, O Zeus, I have not been the only lover, thou too hast longed for a ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish nobles found but little favor in the eyes of the sovereigns. They saw that it caused a competition in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune; and they feared that a softness and effeminacy might thus be introduced, incompatible with the stern nature of the war. They signified their disapprobation to several of the principal noblemen, and ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... fishy but not putrefactive odor, not disagreeable to handle. It retains perfectly all the fertilizing power of the fish. Lands, manured with this compost, will keep in heart and improve: while, as is well known to our coast farmers, the use of fish alone is ruinous in the end, ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... may behold us for the first time in our character of settlers. He may behold three individuals in light shooting coats and cloth caps, standing upon the bank before their picturesque and half-ruinous house, their dogs at their side, and their gaze fixed upon the river that rolled beneath them. The same thoughts probably occupied them all: they were now left in a land which looked much like a desert, with Heaven ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... civilising the inhabitants. It is not intended here to detail their proceedings or to describe at much length the squabbles and constant disorders, murders, and robberies which took place while they held possession of the Island. The speculation proved ruinous to the Adventurers, who in the end lost their estates, and were obliged to leave the islanders to their fate. A brief summary of it will suffice, and those who desire more information on the subject will find a full account of it in the History of the Macleods. [By the same author. ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... again foul, we put into a little place called Sâkeeah, a port of the island in the S.E. Here is nothing in the shape of a port town, only a small square ruinous hovel of mud and plaster, and a rude hut put up temporarily by a Maltese, who is building a boat. I often think the Maltese are the Irish of the South. Maltese enterprise is prevalent in all parts ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... exception to the beneficial law of migration, for habits of intemperance account for the short lives of these immigrants; and though their offspring is abundant, yet it is all tainted with an inheritance of disease, and too many of the children suffer the ruinous consequences of having drawn "still slops" from a mother's breast in infancy. For physically, and in the chain of generation, most truly are the sins of the fathers visited upon the children to the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... ruinous zone, the first phase rapidly lost what remained of its subsultory form, and the pause between the two parts was noticeably longer than near the epicentre. Thus, at Seville and Cordova, two shocks were felt, separated by an interval of some seconds; ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... of all gentle names doth take!" How many memories of fierce seismic powers At sight of thee, as now thou art, awake! How many scenes of what departed bliss! How many thoughts of what entombed hopes! Did FALB foresee such ruinous wreck as this? No more sits Peace upon thy verdant slopes! Subscriptions! Ah, that magical sweet sound Appeals to all, or should appeal. More! More! Suffering demands still more! Charity's ground Punch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... detailed account elsewhere.[*] Suffice it to say here that the so-called colony consisted of about four hundred persons, belonging to seven families or clans. Undermined by a flood of the Yellow River, their synagogue had become ruinous, and, being unable to repair it, they had disposed of its timbers to relieve the pressure of their dire poverty. [Page 44] Nothing remained but the vacant space, marked by a single stone recording the varying fortunes of these forlorn Israelites. It avers ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... is obvious that the existence of these limitations imposes struggle upon individual beings and upon species, seeing that the world contains only a restricted quantity of energy, that is to say of nutriment. But Nicolai shows that war is the most paltry, the stupidest, one may even say the most ruinous, among all forms of struggle. Modern science, which enables us to estimate the amount of solar energy reaching our planet, shows us that the entire animal world does not as yet make use of more than one twenty thousandth part of the available supply. It is obvious that in these conditions ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... boarding school. Under its influence, mothers will not trust the souls of their children to the guardianship of irreligious nurses, nor expose them to the perils of a corrupted and heartless fashion. They will deny themselves the ruinous pleasures of a gay and reckless association with the world; and with maternal solicitude, attend upon the opening of those buds of life which God has committed to them. The pious mother will wield her power over her children, by the force of this sympathy; for her's is the deepest, ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... delay would be ruinous. Every society has a purpose, and the criminal population of Omega is bent upon its own self-destruction. Barrent, you look ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... surrounded by cypress trees and looking forth on the great city which was mistress of the world. Even to-day the splendid columns which still remain and the impressive beauty of the crypt make the church, though in an almost ruinous condition, a striking object in Constantinople. The monastery first became famous as the home of the Akoimetai, or Sleepless Monks, (as they were called from their hours of prayer,) when they withstood the heresies of the later fifth century,[1] ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... it, 10 Such as this ruinous mansion may afford: Tis spacious, but too cold and crazy now For Hospitality's more cordial welcome: But as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... hopelessly too late if I waited till then. It would be almost ruinous to be put on to Pocket Book in a day's time. ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... to the property, because it would leave your hands free for many improvements in which I heartily go with the progress of the age, for which, as merely tenant for life, you could not raise the money except upon ruinous terms; new cottages for labourers, new buildings for tenants, the consolidation of some old mortgages and charges on the rent-roll, etc. And allow me to add that I should like to make a large increase to the jointure of my dear mother. Vining says, too, that there ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... several broken arches, which added to those that were entire, made up the number about an hundred. As I was counting the arches the genius told me that the bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. But tell me further, said he, what thou discoverest on it. I see multitudes of people passing over it, said I, and a black cloud hanging on each end of it. As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... aspiring ivy-spray, stood sharply out against the sunny blue. The breeze had gone down, and neither blade nor leaf stirred in the hot stillness of the air. There was the way by which they had gone up, there was the ruinous gap which Sissy had said was like a giant's bite. Archie's grasp tightened on the stone as he looked. He might well feel stunned and dizzy, gazing thus across the hideous gulf which parted him from the moment when he stood upon the wall with Sissy Langton laughing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... him. Again, Lancelot quite agreed with his uncle, that though covetousness might be idolatry, yet money-making could not be called covetousness; and that, on the whole, though making haste to be rich was denounced as a dangerous and ruinous temptation in St. Paul's times, that was not the slightest reason why it should be so now. All these concessions were made with a freedom which caused the good banker to suspect at times that his shrewd nephew was laughing at him in his ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... got promissory notes in his hand to the amount of ——; if you like round numbers, say five-and-twenty thousand pounds, safely deposited in my portable strong box, alias, double-clasped pocket-book. I leave this ruinous old rat-hole early on to-morrow, for two reasons: first, I do not want to play with Sir Arthur deeper than I think his security would warrant; and, secondly, because I am safer a hundred miles away from Sir Arthur than in the house with him. Look you, my worthy, I tell you this ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... interest caused the publication of terrifying reports that grave legislation hostile to the coal combination was imminent. The price of Reading stock on the Stock Exchange immediately declined. Then, following up their advantage, this dual alliance inspired even more ruinous reports. The credit of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was represented as being in a very bad state. As the railroad had borrowed immense sums of money both to finance its coal combination and to build extensive terminals and other ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... 'Royal Law' which apparently dates from one of the Attalid rulers. It is imperfect. But we can recognize some of the items for which it provided. Houses which fell or threatened to fall on to the public street, or which otherwise became ruinous, could be dealt with by the Astynomi; if their owners failed to repair them, these magistrates were to make good the defects themselves and to recover the cost, and a fine over and above it, from the owners; if the Astynomi neglected their duty, the higher magistrates, the ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... present occasion, and that the sovereign will be reduced to his former level of Margrave of Brandenburg." Eden, from Berlin; June 19, 1792. Records: Prussia, vol. 151. "He (Moellendorf) reprobated the alliance with Austria, condemning the present interference in the affairs of France as ruinous, and censuring as undignified and contrary to the most important interests of this country the leaving Russia sole arbitress of the fate of Poland. He, however, said, what every Prussian without any exception of party ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Gentrie which was left, and the Industry of the Merchant quite decayed; the Husbandman labouring only to live, without desire to be rich to another's use; the Townes (whatsoever concerned not the strength of them) ruinous; And to conclude, the people here growing poore with lesse taxes, then they flourish with ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... and the ruinous state of the family finances completely broke the spirit of this younger Nicholas. He dismissed the servants and worked in the fields and gardens about his fine house as a common market gardener. On fair-days at Liskeard or St. Austell the ex-soldier, prematurely aged, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
