"Wreck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time; for a cruel disaster befel the trunk in which the manuscript was packed, with other books and a few treasures, and which I had sent home by sea. The ship conveying them was stranded at the mouth of the Elbe and my precious manuscript perished miserably in the wreck. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the sea. 'Wreck! What nonsense! She's only reporting herself. Red rocket forward—there's a green light aft now, and two ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... standing at the mother's elbow. He follows her around into the nursery and the kitchen. He tosses up the babies and the omelets, delivers dutiful harangues about the inappropriateness of the piano and the library, and grins fiendishly in his sleeve at the wreck he is making,—a wreck not necessarily of character, but of happiness; for I suppose Satan has so bad a disposition, that, if he cannot do all the harm he would wish, he will still do all he can. It is true that there are thousands of good men married to fond and foolish ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... weeks later, towards the end of October, society knew that the Home Secretary and Lady Kitty had started for Italy—bound first of all for Venice. It was said that Lady Kitty was a wreck, and that it was doubtful whether she would ever recover the sudden and tragic ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with hundreds of United States troops on board, foundered in an Atlantic hurricane. The rumor reached port that there was need of help. Maury was called upon to indicate her probable location. He set to work to show where the wind and currents would combine to place a helpless wreck, and marked the place with a blue pencil. There the relief was sent, and there the survivors of the wreck were found. From that day to this, Maury's word has been accepted without challenge by the matter-of-fact men ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... is a chaos, uncle, a wreck of fragments without unity, principle, or life. No man can find foothold in it now without accommodating his duty and his loyalty to his chances of a livelihood. It is a career, not a crusade. Once I imagined that a man might live as a protest against all this, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... an annual publication called the 'Wreck Register,' which probably few of us have ever seen, if even heard of. Its object is to record all the wrecks which have occurred during the preceding year, accompanying the narrative by such remarks or observations as may contribute to explain ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... hastily and raised his head (for I had oft heard talk o' this treasure), and in that moment he died. So I left them lying and coming to the seaboard sat there a great while watching the break o' the seas on what was left o' the wreck, yet seeing it not. I sat there till noon, Martin, until, driven by thirst and hunger and heat of sun, I set off to seek their habitation, for by their looks I judged them well-fed and housed. But, and here was the marvel, Martin, seek how I might I found no sign of any hut or shelter save ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the times, I think, point in this direction. It is, for example, the obvious aim of Mr. Matthew Arnold to protect, amid the wreck of dogma, the poetic basis of religion. And it is to be remembered that under the circumstances poetry may be the purest accessible truth. In other influential quarters a similar spirit is at work. In a remarkable article published by Professor Knight of St. Andrews in the September ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... equality of human beings is, in every respect that can be tested, absolutely false, and any movement which depends on it will either be wrecked or, if successful, will wreck the state which it tries to operate. It will mean the penalization of real worth and the endowment of inferiority and incompetence. Eugenists can feel no sympathy for a doctrine which is so completely at variance with the facts ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... reason,—God's most precious gift,—a gift dearer than life,—perished in the great endeavor to harmonize the works and word of the Eternal. A most inscrutable event, that such an intellect should have been suffered to go to wreck through too eager a prosecution of such a work. But amid the mystery, which we cannot penetrate, our love, and our veneration, and our gratitude, toward that so highly gifted and truly Christian man shall only grow the deeper because of the cloud and the whirlwind in which he has been ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... crept out, then,' said mother; 'do keep him with you, there's a darling. If I don't get some sleep I shall be a wreck when ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... reckons up where he is. I travelled with a captain once, and so long as he stuck to dead-reckoning he was all right. He made out we were off Cairns, and that's just where we were; because we struck the Great Barrier Reef, and became a total wreck ten minutes after. With the cattle it's just the same. You'll reckon the cattle that you started with, add on each year's calves, subtract all that you sell,—that is, if you ever do sell any—and allow for deaths, and what the blacks spear and the thieves steal. Then you work out the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... sharp lines began to reveal themselves, flanking his nostrils. His heart was bitter. The weeks had brought him to a fuller realization of the horrid blight upon his fair name; he had come to see the wreck in all its cold, brutal aspects. The realization that he was a hunted, branded thing, with a price on his head, sank deeper and deeper into his soul. Hunted! Chased as a criminal! He, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... "It would take me some time to calculate the amount of metal it would require to take the current that would wreck us, but if they do get that amount in contact with us and the earth at the same time we will ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... $10,000,000, but its collapse brought down with it the whole structure of credit. A general movement of liquidation set in, which throughout the West was so violent as to threaten general bankruptcy. Nearly all of the national bank failures were in the West and South, and still more extensive was the wreck of state banks and private banks. It had been the practice of country banks, while firmly maintaining local rates, to keep the bulk of their resources on deposit with city banks at two per cent. This practice now proved to be a fatal entanglement to many institutions. ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... in the plant - that is to say, its power of gathering dead matter out of the wreck round it, and shaping it into its own chosen shape - is of course strongest in the moment of flowering, for it then not only gathers, but forms, with the greatest energy.' It is characteristic of Ruskin's conception of the relationship between ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... was known to them, the speronare had sailed from the very seaport in which they had arrived that night, and where they had got into the cart. The wreck of the speronare had been found, and had been recognised, and it was considered by the inhabitants that the padrone and his crew had perished in the gale. Had they found our two midshipmen and questioned them, it is not improbable that suspicion might have been excited, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to an end. Dreadful things may and do happen in this world, but, as a general rule, they do not last a great while. The fire did its work, and then stopped. It was fearful while it raged, and it left a pitiful wreck; still, as Mrs. Parlin said, it was "not so bad but it might have been worse." "Nothing," she always declared, "ought to make us ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... girl said. "There was a letter waiting for me in my bedroom. It was a short letter, but long enough to wreck ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... increased their speed as if they had been held in before and darted between the two Blues. As the twelve horses were nose to nose the outer Blue pulled sharply inward in a way which appeared certain to pocket Palus and wreck his team and chariot, but even more certain to wreck the swerving Blue. What Palus did I was too far off to see, but the roar of delight from the front rows, which spread north, south and west till it sounded like surf ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... direction from which the thunder-clap was heard, and beheld, just over the spot they had left so recently, a huge pillar of dark smoke rising high into the clear, blue atmosphere. "My habitation is gone to wreck," said Wayland, immediately conjecturing the cause of the explosion. "I was a fool to mention the doctor's kind intentions towards my mansion before that limb of mischief, Flibbertigibbet; I might have guessed he would long to put so rare a frolic into ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the wreck of his manhood, had uttered many names besides hers—that of Basil, from whom he had recently heard news, that of the politic Leander, those of several nobles engaged in the Gothic cause. Scarcely could he believe that he had been guilty of such baseness; he would fain have persuaded himself that ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... republic of America; may the aristocracy of wealth, founded upon the virtues, the toils, and the blood of her Revolutionary armies, soon vanish, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled! The flame that lit the battle's wreck, Shone round him o'er ...
— Phebe, The Blackberry Girl • Edward Livermore
... obscure Acadian post of Beausejour, where he wrote to the colonial minister a statement of his services, which appears to have received no attention. After the fall of Canada, the Chevalier de la Verendrye, he whose eyes first beheld the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, perished in the wreck of the ship "Auguste," on the coast of Cape ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... point out the pitfalls that lay in the path of the inexperienced, and to save them from moral wreck by inspiring within them right ideals and ambitions. This aim is also well stated in the preface ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... once trod the ways of glory, And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour, Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in; A sure and safe one, though thy ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... of a man of the woods to that of an intelligent being, brought on a kind of brain fever which made me almost mad for some weeks, then an idiot for some days, and finally disappeared, leaving me a mere wreck physically, with a mind completely severed from the past, but sternly ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... attracted the guards' attention elsewhere we slipped a chunk of steel into the mess. There was a grinding crash, and a large cogwheel tore its way through the roof. In a moment, the air was full of machinery and German words. It was a proper wreck. The guards ran around gesticulating angrily, tearing their hair and threatening us, while we endeavoured to look surprised. It is reasonable to suppose that we were unsuccessful, for we were hustled back to camp and drew five days' cells each from the Commandant. There was ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... held no sinister meaning, nor to Bettina. In their hearts was no fear of the future, nor of the storms which might some day wreck their happiness. ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... legislature, but was defeated. At this time he thought seriously of learning the blacksmith's trade, but an opportunity was offered him to buy a store, which he did, giving his notes for the purchase money. He was unfortunate in his selection of a partner, and the business soon went to wreck, leaving him burdened with a heavy debt, which he finally paid in full. He then applied himself earnestly to the study of the law. Was appointed postmaster of New Salem in 1833, and filled the office for three years. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... hand when the winter's wind rude Blows cold through the dwellings of want and despair, To ask if misfortune has come to the good, Or if folly has wrought the sad wreck that ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... funny; it was serious. Was this glorious gift on parenthood to which he had looked forward as the crowning joy of his existence, to be nothing but a tragedy that would finally wreck his domestic happiness? It could not be. It must not be. He must be patient, and wait. Billy loved him. He was sure she did. By and by this obsession of motherhood, which had her so fast in its grasp, would relax. She would remember that ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... captain told me, "one of your shrewdest navigators, that d'Urville! He was the Frenchman's Captain Cook. A man wise but unlucky! Braving the ice banks of the South Pole, the coral of Oceania, the cannibals of the Pacific, only to perish wretchedly in a train wreck! If that energetic man was able to think about his life in its last seconds, imagine what his final ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... have strong detachments along my line. These reduce my active force to a comparatively small army. We cannot remain now on the defensive. With 25,000 men, and the bold cavalry he has, he can constantly break my road. I would infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta, including the latter city, send back all my wounded and worthless, and, with my effective army, move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea. Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... days and seven nights the gale raged, but the good ship held out until, on the seventh day, the storm lulled. Hasisadra ventured on deck; and, seeing nothing but a waste of waters strewed with floating corpses and wreck, wept over the destruction of his land and people. Far away, the mountains of Nizir were visible; the ship was steered for them and ran aground upon the higher land. Yet another seven days passed by. On the seventh, Hasisadra sent forth a dove, which found no ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... is suggested by everything the visitor sees at Port Said, the 'turnstile of the nations.' But the tragedy of the canal, the terrible cost of life, the shameful waste of money, the enslavement of the Egyptians in governmental and financial bondage, the wreck of French hopes and aspirations—not one hint of all that tragedy is discernible. Ferdinand de Lesseps, Ismail Pasha and the Egyptian people gave civilization and commerce one of its greatest gifts in the Suez Canal, but the cost ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... Jake when he said, as if he revered the place, "'Tis an ironbound show! 'Tis a shop! Poor devils, what gets throwed up here! But I know where ther's some fine copper bolts waiting for me. I'll hae 'em! I've had some on 'em, an' I'll hae the rest when they rots out o' the timbers. Year '63 that wreck was—lovely vessel, loaded wi' corn. I mind ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the trial, the deliberations of the jury, combined to fill him with a nervous fear. At night, he had been afflicted with terrible nightmares and haunted by weird visions of the scaffold. He was a mental and physical wreck. ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... these two children, was now a broken man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the heavy hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to trade—in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated were now to yield him an ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... place that summer evening, sky and earth warm with sundown, and a pe-wit or so just accentuating the pleasant stillness that ends a long clear day. A beautiful peace, it was, to wreck for ever. And there was my uncle, the modern man of power, in his grey top-hat and his grey suit and his black-ribboned glasses, short, thin-legged, large-stomached, pointing and gesticulating, threatening ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... John Norton; a little more hurrying and a little more staying of things that happen on the earth would make mortals much happier. The great ship that is to-day a wreck would be sailing the sea, and the faces that stare ghastly white from its depths would be rosy with life's happy health. The flowers on her tomb would be twined in the bride's glossy hair, and the tower that now stands half builded ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... it," returned Barry, scrutinizing the nervous wreck puttering about the stained table, muddling with bottle and glasses. "That's why we're here, because he only got some of it. No, no drink, thanks; and it won't be a bad notion if you leave it alone for a while, until we settle ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... was partaken of in addition to cigars, and each was thinking his own thoughts and forming his own plans even while the conversation was on other subjects. The bank robbery in London was spoken of, and in the course of the conversation the wreck of the yacht and the drowning of the three young men also were mentioned yet neither subject seemed of much interest, although Thorne remarked that he was well acquainted with ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... Jackson, pursuing the wreck of the First division. Some of Schurz's regiments break before Devens has passed to the rear. Others stand firm until the victorious Confederates are upon them with their yell of triumph, then steadily fall back, turning and firing at intervals; but nowhere a line which can for more than a brief ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... repulse a heavy attack of the enemy, and immediately assuming the offensive, he attacked in turn with great vigor. The enemy was defeated with great slaughter, and the loss of most of his artillery and trains, and the trophies he had captured in the morning. The wreck of his army escaped during the night, and fled in the direction of Staunton and Lynchburg. Pursuit was made to Mount Jackson. Thus ended this, the enemy's last attempt to invade the North via the Shenandoah Valley. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... held in commemoration of a solemn festival. She came by water in a sort of light frigate, and was to return in the same way. Meantime Nero tampered with the commander of her vessel, and prevailed upon him to wreck it. What was to be done? The great lady was anxious to return to Rome, and no proper conveyance was at hand. Suddenly it was suggested, as if by chance, that a ship of the emperor's, new and properly equipped, was moored at a neighboring station. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... degradation pointed the moral of the triumphs of his manhood. The modern historian, who sees, beneath the superficial splendour of the days of Edward III., the misery and degradation that underlay the wreck of the dying Middle Ages, is in no danger of appraising too highly the merits of this showy and ambitious monarch. Perhaps in our own days the reaction has gone too far, and we have been taught to undervalue the splendid energy and robustness of temperament which commanded the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... fortnight after the day of the great storm I kept on the same course without experiencing any unpleasant incident or check, always excepting the curious threatened wreck which I have ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... with trepidation while she was put through to his room, but his enthusiasm when he recognized her voice refreshed her hopes and her pride. She did not know that part of her welcome was due to the fierce rebuke Charity Coe had inflicted on him a little before because he had mauled her husband into a wreck. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... as pilot) should embark upon him at once, to beat off the drowning sailors; and the monkey should follow, with provisions for the expedition—which arrangement was successfully carried out. The fourth day out from the wreck, the bear began to propound a series of leading questions concerning dinner; when it appeared that the monkey had ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... ordinary edifice the irregular disposition of the weight does not permit the uniform movement which may insure safety. Thus, if the city of Washington should ever be violently shaken, the great obelisk, notwithstanding that it is five hundred feet high, may survive a disturbance which would wreck the lower and more massive edifices which ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... clerk. This was in 1869. A wool concern engaged him as buyer, and for about six years he covered the territory between the Rockies and the Pacific, buying wool. On one of these trips he was in a stage-coach wreck in Oregon and nearly lost his life. He received injuries affecting his back from which he never fully recovered, and which caused the stooped posture which marked his carriage through life thereafter. When he recovered, he came to New York seeking employment, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... thirty-six guns, engaged his majesty's ship the Yarmouth, a sixty-four, but after an action of twenty minutes the Randolph blew up and Captain Biddle and crew perished with the exception of only four men who were picked up a few days after on a piece of wreck. The celebrated Paul Jones made his appearance on the English coast during this year, and rendered his name a terror by the bold and daring exploits which he performed. Captain Barry, off the coast of Maine, behaved in a most gallant manner ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... asunder. With stolid resignation the Orientals retreated to the poop. The people in the pinnace rowed desperately to keep her out of the deadly trough of the billows, but Glaucon stood erect on the drifting wreck and his voice rang through ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the road I'm going, and the end thereof... And yet, in a pinch, I can pull myself together. I'm all right now. But it'll get me again as soon as this is over... Any good I am, any good I do, is just a bit of salvage out of the wreck. The wreck—yes, it's ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... death broke amity, and train'd to war These captains emulous of each other's glory. 120 Thou fear'd'st, great Pompey, that late deeds would dim Old triumphs, and that Caesar's conquering France Would dash the wreath thou war'st for pirates' wreck: Thee war's use stirr'd, and thoughts that always scorn'd A second place. Pompey could bide no equal, Nor Caesar no superior: which of both Had justest cause, unlawful 'tis to judge: Each side had great partakers; Caesar's cause The gods abetted, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... thus the waves disgorge, By weakness rent asunder, A piece of the wreck of the Royal George For the people's ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... mingled with the voice of prayer, and the challenge of the sentinel rang out above the voice of supplication. There was no cessation in the great task the flood has left them with its legacy of woe. Four charges of dynamite last night completed the wreck of the Catholic Church of St. John, which had been left by the flood in a worthless but ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... wert the importer of Mademoiselle Djeck, the tame elephant; of Monsieur Bohain, the gigantic Irishman; and of Signor Hervi o'Nano, the Cockneyan-Italian dwarf. Never should we have seen the Bayaderes but for you; nor T.P. Cooke in "The Pilot," nor the Bedouin Arabs, nor "The Wreck Ashore," nor "bathing and sporting" nymphs, nor other dramatic delicacies. Truly, thou art the luckiest of managers; for all thy efforts succeed, whether they deserve it or not. Sometimes thou drawest up an army of scene-painters, mechanists, dancers, monsters, dwarfs, devils, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... is they who serve as the directors and executioners of public or private malice. Near Uzes twenty-five masked men, with guns and clubs, enter the house of a notary, fire a pistol at him, beat him, wreck the premises, and burn his registers along with the title-deeds and papers which he has in keeping for the Count de Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but the people are on their side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.[1124]—They ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... arbitrary pretensions. He was in consequence mourned as a victim, and his son, the second Charles, at once proclaimed and acknowledged King of Scotland. How he deported himself in that capacity, and what gratitude he and his brother showed the land for its faith and loyalty in the wreck and desperation of their royal fortunes, with a firm and a fearless pen I now purpose to show. But as the tale of their persecutions is ravelled with the sorrows and the sufferings of my friends and neighbours, and the darker tissue of my own woes, it is needful, before proceeding ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... her arms and carried it down to the kitchen. Some of the brass nails dropped loose on the stairs, but she took no heed of them. All she wanted was some instrument with which she could turn the ricketty thing into a complete wreck. In the drawer of a broken kitchen table she found an old knife, with the blade half ground away. This she whetted to an edge on the hearth, and directly the little brass nails flew right and left, a mass of twisted fringe lay on the hearth, when the old woman stood in ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... and others by excessive toil have strengthened and trained their bodily vigour, and some have made exile and the loss of money a passage to leisure and philosophy, as did Diogenes and Crates. And Zeno, when he heard of the wreck of the ship which contained all his property, said, "Thou hast done well, Fortune, to confine me to ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... become more dangerous. Till the present storm, therefore, blows over, leave him to his fate, and when a calm succeeds, I will myself, for the sake of Priscilla, aid you to save what is possible of the wreck." ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... landing place, there would be genuine trouble. Let them move aggressively and there would be panic and disorder and pure catastrophe, with self-exiled city dwellers desperate from hunger because they were away from market centers. It looked as if a dozen or two monsters could wreck a civilization without the need to kill ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Mr. Daddles, "made a living by what they could steal from wrecks. Either they stayed on dangerous shores and waited for a wreck, or they would deceive sailors by building false beacons at night so as to toll the ships upon the rocks. That was a pretty mean sort of thing! They couldn't pick out a rich galleon, all full of gold ingots, and then fight for the treasure, like pirates and gentlemen! ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... and there beside me was the lady who had wanted to find the sea. She was gazing at the place where the wreck was last seen, her eyes fixed, her mouth a little open in awe ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... streets of London when he got tired of her. After living for two or three years in the vilest haunts in London, Lucie came to Holland, where, not being able to sell her own person any longer, she became a procuress—a natural ending to her career. Lucie was only thirty-three, but she was the wreck of a woman, and women are always as old ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... years in office, these remarkable words: "You can't help feeling an interest in him, a sympathy and a kind of pity; feeling, too, that he has some qualities of great value, yet fearing that his weak points may wreck him or may wreck something. His life seems a series of wise, sound conclusions, slowly reached, oddly worked out, on great questions with constant failures in administration of detail and dealings with individuals." It was evidently a clever man who wrote this; he would have ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... one's heart while we, spectators, stood frozen at a window which overhung the river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible, encountered floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for it suggests a huge terror, the proportions of which are veiled. But it now struck me, for the first time, that there ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy passage round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I could not bear it and hid my ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... boat was found after the war lying on the bottom of the harbor, about one hundred feet from the wreck of the Housatonic, with her bow pointing toward the sloop of war and with every man of her crew dead at his post,—just ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... is not the man who sets out in life to be wicked. Few men are born wicked; many are born weak. False ideas of manliness; false conceptions of good fellowship, which false ideas of the relationship of men and women give, wreck many a young man of otherwise good intentions. The sinner is the man who cannot say no. The fall through vice to sin is a matter of slow transition. One virtue after another is yielded up as the strain on the will becomes too great. In Kipling's fable ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... country, as, in many of the watercourses, we found all the gum-trees either dying or dead, without any young trees growing up to replace them. The moisture which had promoted their growth, and brought them to maturity, existed no longer; and in many places, only the wreck of noble trees remained to indicate to the traveller what once had been the character of this now arid region. In other watercourses the gum-trees were still green and flourishing, and of giant growth; but we were equally unable ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... had passed the cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The highways were crowded with a trembling multitude: the distinctions of rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the general calamity. Every one strove to bear away some fragment from the wreck of his fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate service of an adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects. The ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... had collided with something floating awash, say a water-logged wreck, you were ordered by your captain to go forward and ascertain if there was any damage done. Did you think it likely from the force of the blow?' asked the assessor sitting to the left. He had a thin horseshoe beard, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... through the bushes he sits on a rock munching some burnt flour. He announces with an unsteady voice: 'Well, she's gone.' We say not much, nothing that indicates poor courage, but go about to find what we can in the wreck, and pack up for a tramp down river. In an hour we have picked out everything useful, including my money, nails, thread and damaged provisions, and are on the way down river hoping to pass the rapids before ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... hands clasped, like a pair of sulky Napoleons, one fat, one slender. The wooden pretense of their attitude set Rudolph, for an instant, to laughing silently and bitterly. This final scene,—what justice, that it should be a mean waste, the wreck of silly pleasure-grounds, long forgotten, and now used only by grotesque play-actors. He must die, in both action and setting, without dignity. It was some comfort, he became aware, to find that the place was ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... only for its usefulness in general, but especially for its value in leading to true decision of character. I mean, the habit of doing every thing which it devolves upon us to do at all, precisely at the time when it ought to be done. Every thing in human character goes to wreck, under the reign of procrastination, while prompt action gives to all things a corresponding and proportional life and energy. Above all, every thing in the shape of decision of character is lost by delay. It should be a sacred rule ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... fertility in devising ways and means of getting out of unexpected difficulties. When, in 1860, the Ship of State seemed like to run aground hopelessly, it was his determination and ingenuity that averted total wreck. As in his youth he saved the flatboat, so in his mature years ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Channel, they are in the Bay of Biscay. A storm is raging. Sailors fear wreck, but Oswald feels not a tremor. What are ocean's pending perils to this human castaway, about whose hunted soul seem closing the ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... to escape from the wreck, when they reached the land they found themselves in a scene desolate enough to quell the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... rolling like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter and gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and not a drop of water remained: then their tongues were loosened, and they railed at the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... when we came out of the Motor Parkway, and I must give up the wheel because of Mr. Goodrich, who fears I might snap in two pieces at the waist and wreck his family. But it was very pretty country still, so I was soon consoled. It is difficult, wishing to live in so many villages! If I had to choose, I do not see how I could; and Peter says it will be the same with me in New England. But, ma chere, if you could see Jericho! ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... ON LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND or The Mystery of the Wreck One of Billie's friends owned a summer bungalow on Lighthouse Island, near the coast. The school girls made up a party and visited the Island. There was a storm and a wreck, and three little children were ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... last rope that bound them, and then plunged in and joined his men. The distance was little over fifty yards to the shore, and the wreck formed a partial shelter. A crowd of people were assembled at the edge of the beach with ropes in readiness to give any assistance in their power. Malcolm and Ronald were among those who had swum to the masts, but when within a short distance of the shore the ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... that for ten months had surrounded it, had vanished. Hope departed, and for a few days was replaced by feelings of disappointment and depression of spirits not often experienced by me. Stubbs abandoned the business and decided to go home and leave me to hold the fort and look after the wreck, as he called it, to see what ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... in that action, having lost his right arm and one of his legs. Previously to his leaving England, he was engaged to a young lady, to whom he was tenderly attached. Feeling acutely, on his return, that he was a mere wreck, he sent a friend to the lady, informing her of his mutilated condition, and generously offering to release her from her engagement. "Tell him," replied the noble girl, "that I will joyfully marry him, if he has only enough of body left to hold his soul." This is marrying for the gem, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... see," explained the surgeon, "Scoville was a dead man from the minute of the accident. Nothing could have saved him When the accident happened I was down at Bayville attending the men who were injured in the wreck last Saturday. I telegraphed that I would come at once. But there was a delay on the road, and I did not get here until three o'clock in the morning. Meanwhile everything had been done that was possible. But nothing could save the poor fellow. This shock will kill his ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... never forgot that sultry evening, with the close, noisome atmosphere of the hot mission-hall, and the confused buzzing of many voices, which after a short silence began to hum in his ears. The drunkard was still standing in the doorway, the very wreck and ruin of a man; and every detail of his loathsome, degraded appearance was burnt in on Felix's brain. He felt stupefied and bewildered—as if he had received almost a death-blow. But in his inmost soul a cry went up to heaven, "Lord, Thou also hast ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... efforts. Meantime Potto Jumbo, taking the rope off Oliver, fastened it round his own waist. "I go for the others," he cried out. "You hold dere, Oliver and you young ladies. Don't let go. Walter, he soon come all right—no fear." Saying this, Potto rushed into the water, and reaching the wreck, seized hold of Mr Thudicumb, who was still clinging to it. But where was honest Roger Trew? Mr Thudicumb was landed, but greatly exhausted. Just then we saw another figure holding on to the bulwarks forward; but he had before ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... more self-respect and true manliness than many of us with our family prestige, social position, and proud ancestral halls. After I had lived abroad for years, I returned a broken-down young man, prematurely old, my constitution a perfect wreck. A life of folly and dissipation was telling fearfully upon me. My friends shrank from me in dismay. I was sick nigh unto death, and had it not been for Marie's care I am certain that I should have died. She followed me down to the borders of ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... clerks, merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, doctors. It is remarkable that every one of those that drank is dead; not one living of my age. Barring a few who were taken off by sickness, every one who proved a wreck and wrecked his family did it from rum and no other cause. Of those who were church-going people, who were steady, industrious, and hard-working men, who were frugal and thrifty, every single one of them, without an exception, owns the house in which he lives and has ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... Spain, and that "if affairs there had been properly conducted not an Englishman would have escaped". Without going quite so far as this, the parliamentary opposition in England made the least of the victory and the most of the retreat, which unfortunately coincided in time with the wreck of the Walcheren expedition. Even Wellington's best friends in England began to lose heart, as did many of his own officers. He remained undaunted, and having established his headquarters on the high ground between the Tagus and the Douro, meditated designs which, slowly ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... all kind of dispute and discussion in the said cases of shipwreck, it is agreed that when there shall be no Consul or Vice-Consul to attend to the saving of the wreck, or that the residence of the said Consul or Vice-Consul (he not being at the place of the wreck) shall be more distant from the said place than that of the competent judge of the country, the latter shall immediately proceed therein, with all the despatch, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... steamed three miles further. On the wild spot where we anchored there was fortunately a small heap of anthracite coal, that probably had been part of the cargo of some wreck, of which we took as much as would carry us to Nassau, and arrived there safely. Thus the attempt to get into Savannah was a failure. It was tried once afterwards by a steamer which managed to get well past the fort, but which stuck on a sand-bank ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... could answer, the current caught the boat, and swept them onward through the channel straight toward the wreck. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Dr. Humphries to Harry. "Could her constitution sustain the frenzied excitement she now labors under, I would have some hope, but the months of wretchedness she has passed through, has so weakened her frame that nothing remains but a wreck of what was once ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... Gerda's face was pale, and her eyes wide with the terror of the wreck, she never screamed or let go her hold of the sternpost to which she had been clinging. She was a sea ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... the wall. First a tiny little bit of stone taken out that did not show the daylight through; then a little bigger, and a bigger. And the serpent struck its fangs into him, and if you saw him now, he is a shambling wreck, outside of society, and, as we sometimes tremblingly think, beyond hope. Young men! 'whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... finished reading, with the utmost interest and admiration, J—— C——'s narrative of his escape from the wreck of the Poolaski: what a brave, and gallant, and unselfish soul he must be! You never read anything more thrilling, in spite of the perfect modesty of this account of his. If I can obtain his permission, and squeeze out the time, I will surely copy it for you. The quiet ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... on through the watches of the flying night. It is by night that the winds blow hardest and do so much damage; how can we escape should one of those sudden squalls spring up from South West or West, which so often wreck a vessel when our lords the gods are unpropitious? Now, therefore, let us obey the behests of night and prepare our supper here hard by the ship; to-morrow morning we will go on board again ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... both of us! Yes, a long union, for it will stretch into eternity, and a happy one, for come what will, we shall be happy in each other. I send you the richest jewel that has ever been in our possession, the only one which has survived the wreck of our fortunes. It has been preserved more on account of its traditionary interest than for its intrinsic value. Tradition tells us that at the taking of Jerusalem, in the first crusade, this jewel was snatched from the turban of Saladin, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... of a humour," he laughed as he surveyed the wreck. "Something's gone wrong with me. I've never mistreated my flowers before." He lifted the broadaxe to its place, tenderly, almost lovingly. "By my soul, it's a beautiful piece of work. It's as sure as ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... little use, and of great danger. He tried all in his power to shake the inflexibility of Stanhope, but in vain, and at last was obliged to yield as being the feebler of the two. The time lost in this dispute saved the wreck of the army which had just been defeated. What was afterwards done ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... reconnoitred and its approaches cleared, the army entered the walls: it traversed the reeking and blood-stained ruins with its accustomed order, pomp, and martial music, triumphing over the deserted wreck, and having no other witness of its glory but itself. A show without spectators, an almost fruitless victory, a sanguinary glory, of which the smoke that surrounded us, and seemed to be our only conquest, was but too faithful ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... a better, more beautiful place, in the whole world you will not find. And each place has its own legend: at Rafiel the Gold lured Pirates, and the Turnip-Field; at Polwint the Giant Excise Man; at Borhaze the Smugglers of Trezent Rock; at St. Borse the wreck of "The Golden Galleon" in the year 1563, with its wonderful treasure; and at St. Maitsin Cove the famous Witch of St. Maitsin Church Town who turned men's bones into water and filled St. Maitsin Church with snakes. Back from one summer holiday, treasuring these stories ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... to Little Choyeuse Creek they were welcomed in person by Victor Gagnon. He awaited them at his threshold. The clumsy stockade of lateral pine logs, a relic of the old Indian days when it was necessary for every fur store to be a fortress, was now a wreck. A few upright posts were standing, but the rest had long since been used to bank ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... so, John. To tell you the plain truth, I am shocked at the change drink has wrought in your appearance. You are fast becoming a wreck, I should say; and I don't want a wreck of a friend on ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... then our hero kills his first man by misadventure, and must leave Iceland; wrecked on an isle off Norway, he is taken in there by a lord of that land, and there works the deed that makes him a famous man; the slaying of the villainous bearserks, namely, who would else have made wreck of the honour and goods of Grettir's host in his absence; this great deed, we should say, is prefaced by Grettir's first dealings with the supernatural, which characterise this Saga, and throw a strange light on the more ordinary matters throughout. ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... to fight the State of Russia, or the State of France, or that of England, or all of them, and to trample neutral Belgium, as it now would be, here, for the State of Pennsylvania to declare war on the States of New York and Connecticut and to wreck New Jersey as she sent ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... you should arrive at a prompt decision," interrupted Leslie. "Now, if I may advise, what I would suggest is this. Let me have the quarter-boat and four hands. I will go down to the wreck and bring off anybody who may be upon it, and if it falls dark before we return, hoist a lantern to the peak, as a guide to us, and we shall then have no difficulty in ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... soul parodied the words to suit my needs. Yes, I felt that I must "bend to the oar" of my purpose, I must not "heed the rollin' waves" of weariness and anxiety, must leave "the poor old stranded wreck" of my domestic happiness and ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... some hurricane had swept over the sea, and covered it with the wreck of the noble armaments which a moment before were so proudly riding on its bosom. Little had they now to remind one of their late magnificent array, with their hulls battered and defaced, their masts and spars gone or fearfully splintered by the shot, their canvas ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... to him till you compose yourself. It is all-important that you should speak to him, when you see him, in your natural voice, and you must prepare yourself for a shock. He is at present a mere wreck, so changed that you ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... accompaniment of the metallic chords. A row of women sat close to the wall, attired, as a rule, in dark colours without neck-bands or sleeves. Five or six men, all people of culture, occupied seats here and there. In an armchair was seated a former writer of fables, a mere wreck now; and the pungent odour of the two lamps was intermingled with the aroma of the chocolate which filled a number of bowls placed on ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... So he decided to put out again and go on. It never occurred to him that as he was in shelter he'd better stay there till a pilot arrived, because getting out of that was exactly when he'd want one. He put her ashore. That was like Purdy, to play for safety and make a wreck. When he got over the fuss Lloyd's raised about it he refused to take command again for some time. He couldn't even make up his mind whether he wanted ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... beautiful little girl, beloved by everybody. She was eight years younger than I, and my especial pet. Then came the terrible fever, and for days we thought she could not live. Finally she rallied, only for us to discover that we had lost her—her brain was a wreck. The semblance of Ruth stayed with us twelve years longer, until she was eighteen years old; then she went Home. That is undoubtedly the foundation for Ilga's malicious little story; but, you see, Thistledown, there is no present cause for sorrow, ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... remarkably strong hold of the Indians. One man suffered for two weeks from fever and ague, lost his appetite, and seemed a general wreck; but after a two-grain quinine pill became at once himself again, and a few days later was able to take a message for me to a place forty miles off and return ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... steel. For the moment I did not recognize what it was. The carpenter, with two men, sprang upon Number Three hatch and worked hurriedly and fearfully. And I knew why Captain West had turned tail to the storm. Number Three hatch was a wreck. Among other things the great timber, called the "strong-back," was broken. He had had to run, or founder. Before our decks were swept again I could make out the carpenter's emergency repairs. With fresh timbers he was bolting, lashing, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... proceeded through the town towards the wonderful castle which is its chief attraction, and the noblest wreck of German grandeur. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... And there are especial reasons why women should be earnest in this cause. Their sex, though not so much addicted as ours to the use of intoxicating drinks, suffers more from the effects of the evil. To them it is the destruction of all domestic peace, the wreck of all conjugal and maternal hopes; it is ignorance, poverty, misery, for themselves and children. My own attention was first called to this reform by the sufferings of women. (Mr. May here related several touching anecdotes ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a cherub, to whom I wished to be a father, as well as a mother; and the double duty appeared to me to produce a proportionate increase of affection. But the pleasure I felt, while sustaining you, snatched from the wreck of hope, was cruelly damped by melancholy reflections on my widowed state—widowed by the death of my uncle. Of Mr. Venables I thought not, even when I thought of the felicity of loving your father, and how a mother's pleasure might be exalted, and her ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... or well, such as "riches, by which," as stated by the same authority (Fact. et Dict. Memor. vii, 2), "many have come to an evil end; honors, which have ruined many; power, of which we frequently witness the unhappy results; splendid marriages, which sometimes bring about the total wreck of a family." Nevertheless there are certain goods which man cannot ill use, because they cannot have an evil result. Such are those which are the object of beatitude and whereby we merit it: and these the saints seek absolutely when they pray, as in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... returning my love, but that reflection did not worry me. In my quiet, modest feeling akin to ordinary affection, there was no jealousy of Orlov or even envy of him, since I realised that for a wreck like me happiness was only to be found ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... went back to the shop with a waggish caution against too much love-making. Bulpert, after shifting furniture, took up a position on the white hearthrug, and gave a stirring adventure in the life of a coastguardsman who saved from a wreck his wife and child. At the end, Bulpert mopped face, readjusted collar, and ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... up the road. His horse, trembling violently, was standing still, with the wreck of the carriage behind it. He stooped mechanically, and picking up the whip which was lying in the road said that he would go ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... fell into the sea. The other so exactly hit the middle of the ship as to split it into pieces. The mariners and passengers were all crushed to death or fell into the sea. I myself was of the number of the latter; but, as I came up again, I fortunately caught hold of a piece of the wreck, and swimming, sometimes with one hand and sometimes with the other, but always holding fast the plank, the wind and the tide favoring me, I came to an ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... were settled, the sole wreck of his wealth that remained to his widow and child was the small settlement from Mrs. Rothesay's fortune, on which she had lived at Stirling. So they were not ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... it is—it is unholy spoil. It has been dragged from some wreck. Cast it again to the greedy waters. They yield not their prey without a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... that ship for me," he ordered, jerking a thumb back toward his heli. "Then come over to that wreck. I shall want words with the pilot." He held out ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... the rudest: he broke at least one crucible per day, lamenting the while that he had been supplied with English articles, instead of creusets de Bourgogne. And no wonder! He treated them by a strong blast in a furious coal-fire without previous warming. His muffle was a wreck, and such by degrees became the condition of all his apparatus. However, as we sought, so we found: hardly a Bedawi lad in camp but unpouched some form of metallic specimens. The Shaykhs declared that the wealth of "Karun" must have been dug here; ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... vain that Ella tried to place on parchment words of soothing and consolation—to draw her thoughts from lingering around the ruined wreck of her affections, and direct them to the "hope set before" her, of obtaining through the merits of the Savior a home "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Every letter she received came burthened with its own weight ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... why his son, now a good workman, with a fair prospect of equally succeeding in trade, should not be content to do as he had done. He had also that unpoetic thrifty style of looking at the whole question, which led him to consider his son as making a total wreck of the many years' study which he had already gone through to fit him for the goldsmith's trade; and he was, consequently, much displeased. He considered the question in the light of a positive loss for an uncertain gain, and somewhat rudely dismissed it from his mind. ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... and let go her hold to set him free. He helped shake himself loose with a loud forced laugh and a toss of the head to get his long hair out of his eyes. "We'll leave the wreck," he spluttered, "and make for the shore." The shore, fortunately, was scarcely more than a hundred yards away,—yet never had the great twin towers of the library seemed so distant or the wireless cage on ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... to do good in the spreading of health knowledge among their friends can serve best by getting health themselves. If a physical wreck evolves into good health there will be considerable comment and inquiry. This is the opportunity to tell what nature will do and inform others where to obtain a good ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... W—— soon afterwards invited me to Portsmouth, from which I was then not far distant. The divers had been for some time busy; a great part of the wreck had been laid open, and some curious discoveries been made, and treasures recovered, which inspired the workmen with ardour. On the following day, I was at the scene of operation. When I went on board of the lighter, from which the bell was suspended, I examined the apparatus. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... now. He only sat there and completed the wreck of my moral basis, the rout of my convictions, the purchase of my soul. He cares for you, Barbara. That is what makes him ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... leaped into the first boat which reached the water, and in his eagerness to save his fellow-creatures instantly forgot his own bitter disappointment. Three men only were picked up alive, floating on fragments of the wreck. It sank almost directly the boats got up to the spot. What had caused the catastrophe no one could tell, but the brig certainly must have had a larger amount of gunpowder on board her than was supposed. Mr Schank therefore, as before, continued to ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... where he confronted the flounder with open mouth, overturned the table, smashed all the crockery and pewter, made the uproar and confusion complete. The pig and flounder fell upon each other, wrestled among the wreck, nor ceased until, like Kilkenny cats, they had nearly devoured their substance. Such a chaos of excitement as followed! Grandpapa and Uncle Jeff ogled one another in fear and trembling, women fainted in the arms ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton |
