"Undoing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... other Self-flatteries, all vain and indiscreet, took up her waking Nights, and now more retired Days; while Love, to make her truly wretched, suffered her to sooth herself with fond Imaginations; not so much as permitting her Reason to plead one Moment to save her from undoing: She would not suffer it to tell her, he had taken Holy Orders, made sacred and solemn Vows of everlasting Chastity, that it was impossible he could marry her, or lay before her any Argument that might prevent her Ruin; but Love, mad malicious Love, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... 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 |
