"Breakdown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and her threat to build a railroad from Berlin to Bagdad and tap the riches of the East, led the British to form alliances with their traditional enemies—the French and the Russians. Russia, after the breakdown of Czarism in 1917, dropped out of the Entente, and the United States took her place among the Allies of the British Empire. During the struggle France was reduced to a mere shell of her former power. The War of ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... breakdown is in dealing with the new relations that arise from the mutualism, the interdependence of our time. Every new social relation begets a new type of wrongdoing—of sin, to use an old-fashioned word—and many years always elapse before society is able to turn this sin into ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the surprises of the War was the complete breakdown of international socialism. Not only socialists, but those of us who had been thoughtfully watching the movement from without, had come to believe that the measure of consciousness of international brotherhood it had developed in the artisan groups of many lands, would be ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... Aylmer and Edith had kept it to themselves. Mrs Ottley listened imperturbably to Edith's story, a somewhat incoherent concoction, but told with dash and decision, that Bruce had been ordered away for a sea-voyage for fear of a nervous breakdown. She cried a little, said nothing, kissed Edith more than usual, and took the children away for longer walks and drives. With a mother's flashlight of intuition she felt at once certain there was something wrong, but she didn't wish to probe the subject. Her confidence in Edith reached the ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... their trudge through those endless trees, with Fear for a companion. Even the porters, who had been told nothing, seemed more afraid than usual, though whether this was because they "smell rat," as Jeekie called it, or owing to the progressive breakdown of their nervous systems, Alan did not know. About midday they stopped to eat because the men were too tired to walk further without rest. For an hour or more they had been looking for a comparatively open place, but as it chanced could find none, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... erratic condition of mind that had come over an old friend, the result of heavy responsibilities and the rush of London life. Julie had no idea when she wrote that these symptoms were in reality the subtle beginnings of a breakdown, which ended fatally, and no one lamented the issue more truly than she; but she could not resist catching folly as it flew, and many of the flighty axioms became ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... many beautiful women, so that sensual excesses contributed to the semi-hysterical condition into which he eventually fell. That is not impossible, but certainly a sense of impotence to save his father and his family from the calamities he clearly saw approaching was the proximate cause of his breakdown. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... was a general breakdown. Handkerchiefs played a more important part at the morning meal than the delicious bacon and fresh rolls that graced ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... more compelling than the exhaustion of grief, and it is the most restless temperaments that usually suffer from it the most keenly. It is those who have watched constantly, tirelessly, selflessly, for weeks or even months, for whom the final breakdown is the most utter and ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Carlyle, the celebrated literary moralist, was born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, Dec. 4, 1795. He was educated at the village school and at the Annan Grammar School, proceeding to Edinburgh University in 1809. The breakdown of his dogmatic beliefs made it impossible for him to enter the clerical profession, and neither school-teaching nor the study of law attracted him. Supporting himself by private teaching, Carlyle made the beginnings of a literary connection. He fought his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... epilepsy, what was to prevent my being similarly afflicted? This was the thought that soon got possession of my mind. The more I considered it and him, the more nervous I became; and the more nervous, the more convinced that my own breakdown was only a matter of time. Doomed to what I then considered a living death, I thought of epilepsy, I dreamed epilepsy, until thousands of times during the six years that this disquieting idea persisted, my over-wrought imagination seemed to drag me to ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... think with joy of the days to come when the misery and despair are replaced by gladsomeness and hope. That is a dream, but no Socialist rests upon the dream merely: the hope of the Socialist is in the very material fact of the economic development from competition to monopoly; in the breakdown of capitalism itself. ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... at high pressure. In order that these might be carried out efficiently, the whole apparatus had to be carried down to the Hut. Here, Bickerton and Correll were continually in consultation with the meteorologist on the latest breakdown. Cups were blown off several times, and one was lost and replaced with difficulty. Most aggravating of all was a habit the clocks developed of stopping during the colder spells. The old-fashioned method of boiling them was found of assistance, but it was discovered ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... was the breakdown of the Confederate negotiations with Mexico. General Preston was refused recognition. In those fierce days of July when the fate of Atlanta was in the balance, the pride and despair of the Confederate Government flared up in a haughty letter to Preston reminding ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... pies, Elizabeth. The men have been put back by a breakdown. They won't be able to get through before five or half-past," he said, coming into the kitchen to investigate ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... was a series of letters published in fac-simile, one, signed by Parnell, expressing approval of Mr. Burke's murder. After an elaborate trial (extending to one hundred and twenty-eight days), the most sensational event in which was the breakdown under cross-examination, and the flight and suicide at Madrid, of Pigott, the wretched Irishman who had imposed upon the Times with forgeries, Mr. Parnell was formally cleared of the charge of having been ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... such gloomy utterances may be found in those superficial indications of chaos such as the breakdown of exchange and of international trade; the severe business depression; the waste and inefficiency of industry; the prevalence of unrest and sabotage, and the preparations for ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... place to put the lads from Freeport on the pedestal of fame more noticeably than this experiment. They had easily and modestly staged a complete breakdown of the hazing habit at Marshallton Tech. Strangely perhaps there was no blame nor suspicion put upon Bill and Gus for the subsequent edict from the faculty forbidding it. That seemed to be considered a natural aftermath ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... the applause that greeted Lottie's conclusion. Dan executed a miniature breakdown as an expression of his feelings, and it seemed as if Mr. Dimmerly's chuckling laugh would never cease. De Forrest looked uneasy, and Hemstead was in a trance of bewildered delight. Alice and Harcourt exchanged ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... superintendent, "I can send you over plenty. But the use of such stuff as that would leave some joints loose, and make a breakdown of the boat's ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... a very pleasant room, having in it the statue of a saint, and full of a country air. But I had done too much in this night march, as you will presently learn, for my next day was a day without salt, and in it appreciation left me. And this breakdown of appreciation was due to what I did not know at the time to be fatigue, but to what was undoubtedly a deep ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... different civilizations have been substituted, and yet in temperament and character the Negro in all these countries is essentially the same. The so-called 'reversion to type' often pointed out in the Negro is in reality but the recrudescence of fundamental, unchanged race traits upon the partial breakdown of the social heritage or the Negro's failure successfully to ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... against all failure. Should, for instance, the audience prove to be of a more discriminating and observant character than he liked or anticipated, and the exhibition in consequence be rendered critical, all he had to do was, to aver that the spirits would not come; it was no breakdown on his part Homer was sulky, or Dante was hipped, or Lord Bacon was indisposed to meet company, and there was the end of it. You were invited to meet celebrities, but it was theirs to say if they ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Rule—an issue as dead as mutton, is opposed to Tariff Reform, which has never been alive. Much as the majority of people detest the preposterously clumsy attempts to amputate Ireland from the rule of the British Parliament which have been going on since the breakdown of Mr. Gladstone's political intelligence, their dread of foolish and scoundrelly fiscal adventurers is sufficiently strong to retain the Liberals in office. The recent exposures of the profound financial rottenness of the Liberal party ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... did not really understand what was going on. 'By-the-bye, what is this same constitution they are making such a noise about?' asked a lazzarone who had been shouting 'Viva la Costituzione' all the day. Within a few weeks of the breakdown at Novara, Count Confalonieri wrote wisely to Gino Capponi that revolutions are not made by high intelligences, but by the masses which are moved by enthusiasm, and for a possibility of success, the word ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... night, the Negroes had a "breakdown," often dancing all night long. About twelve o'clock they had a big supper, everybody bringing a box of all kinds of good things to eat, and putting it on a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... design, was indeed given her head in the weeks that followed, for Mrs. Salisbury steadily declined into a real illness, and the worried family was only too glad to delegate all the domestic problems to Justine. The invalid's condition, from "nervous breakdown" became "nervous prostration," and August was made terrible for the loving little group that watched her by the cruel fight with typhoid fever into which Mrs. Salisbury's exhausted little body was drawn. Weak as she was physically, her spirit never ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... gasped, and her face was convulsed with emotion. For one breathless moment, as we clutched hands and drew close together, I thought the breakdown had come at last, but she fought down her sobs, crying in ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that first question in these very informal days. We are witnessing a breakdown of all external forms of authority which, while salutary and necessary, is also perilous. Not many of us err, just now, by overmagnifying our official status. Many of us instead are terribly at ease in Zion and might become less assured and more significant by undertaking the ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... The supplies for the brain and nervous system are absorbed, and the seed diverted through sexual excesses in the marriage relationship, by fornication, or by any other form of immorality, the man's power must decline: that to this very cause may be attributed the failure and breakdown of so many ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... carriage broke down in Sneyd Vale, two miles from Sneyd and three miles from Hanbridge. Fourth, that five minutes later Denry, all in his best clothes, drove up behind his mule. Fifth, that Denry drove right past the breakdown, apparently not noticing it. Sixth, that Jock, touching his hat to Denry as if to a stranger (for, of course, while on duty a footman must be dead to ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... companions. He was left in the snow, unconscious—his winnings gone. The wealth of his father and the devotion of his mother could not save him, and he went with pneumonia a few days later. It was said that this caused her breakdown—let us see. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... but your health is bad, and you're not going to take the funeral tomorrow. You've had a sudden breakdown, and you're going to get a call from some church in the East—as far East as Yokohama or Bagdad, I hope; and leave here in a few weeks. You understand? I've thought the thing out, and you've got to go. You'll do no good to yourself or others here. Take my advice, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Lewis, the Reverend Orme's breakdown, with its intimate worry displacing all lesser cares, the absorption of Ann Leighton as her husband's constant attendant—these things made of Natalie a woman in a night. She assumed direction of the house, and calmly ordered mammy around in a way that warmed that old soul, born to ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... this sort of climate would suit any one in ordinary health, inviting and stimulating to constant out-of-door exercise, and that it would be equally favorable to that general breakdown of the system which has the name of nervous prostration. The effect upon diseases of the respiratory organs can only be determined by individual experience. The government has lately been sending soldiers who have consumption from various stations in the United States ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... two bright spots of color in her cheeks: "Resting in the evenings is not going to help mother; Dr. Hawkes says she needs months and months of rest and unless she has it she will soon be having a nervous breakdown or something else; that working for nearly eight years in an office supporting herself and two daughters is enough to tire any woman out. Then to-day a wonderful invitation came from my father's relatives, who have never paid the least ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... in him—not much fight, as he himself said. Not the sort to survive. Life was too strong—too difficult for him. He bungled everything—even an exam. It would be wiser, more consistent to let him drift. And yet at sight of that futile breakdown, it was not impatience or contempt that Robert felt, but a choking tenderness—a fierce pity. He had to protect him—pull him through. He had promised so much—he forgot when: that afternoon lying in the long, sooty ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... indignation, into hectic mental uncertainties. Then, with the fatigue point well passed, he had marshaled the last of his own animal strength and essayed the final blasphemous Vesuvian onslaught that brought about the nervous breakdown, the ultimate collapse. She had wept, then, the blubbering, loose-lipped, abandoned weeping of hysteria. She had stumbled forward and caught at his arm and clung to it, as though it were her last earthly pillar of support. Her huge plaited ropes of hair had fallen down, thick brown ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... minutes' rest when the clown came on, and perhaps that would help her to go through the rest of the act without an absolute breakdown. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... signs of much that bodes ill. The machinery is so highly geared, the tension and strain are so great, the effort and the output have alike so increased, that there is cause to dread the ruin that would come from any great accident, from any breakdown, and also the ruin that may come from the mere wearing out of the machine itself. The only previous civilization with which our modern civilization can be in any way compared is that period of Graeco-Roman civilization extending, say, from the Athens of Themistocles to the Rome ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... and avoided side streets. He became furtive and watchful; his eyes were forever flitting here and there; he chose the outer edges of the sidewalks, and he went nowhere after nightfall unattended. The time was past when he could doubt the constancy of his purpose; but he did fear a nervous breakdown, and even shuddered at the thought of possible insanity. Being in fact as sane a man as ever lived, his irrational nerves alarmed him all the more. He could not conceive that an event was immediately before him which, without making his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... are our brother's keeper; that a brotherhood of man does exist outside after-dinner speeches. Too many men make the mistake, when they reach the point of enough, of going on pursuing the same old game: accumulating more money, grasping for more power until either a nervous breakdown overtakes them and a sad incapacity results, or they drop "in the harness," which is, of course, only calling an early grave by another name. They cannot seem to get the truth into their heads that as they have ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... ours, sandy soils may seem very open and friable on the surface but frequently hold some unpleasant subsoil surprises. Over geologic time spans, mineral grains are slowly destroyed by weak soil acids and clay is formed from the breakdown products. Then heavy winter rainfall transports these minuscule clay particles deeper into the earth, where they concentrate. It is not unusual to find a sandy topsoil underlaid with a dense, cement-like, clayey sand ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... somehow. Ask yourself a riddle. Tell yourself a few anecdotes. I'll be with you in a moment. I say, I wonder what the cove is doing at Belpher? Deuced civil cove," said Reggie approvingly. "I liked him. And now, business of repairing breakdown." ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Protestantism never succeeded in France, either after the Reformation, when it ought to have prevailed, nor after the Revolution, when it ought not. The failure to establish the Protestant Church on the ruins of the old regime, to which Quinet attributes the breakdown of the Revolution, and which Napoleon regretted almost in the era of his concordat, is explained by Mr. Flint on the ground that Protestants were in a minority. But so they were in and after the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... really?" asked Wallace. "They're lucky. This beastly breakdown of mine has spoiled all my chances. My, I'd like to ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... fellow-creature might have all things good! another to live a living death that he might persist in the pride of life! She could not throw God's life to the service of the stupid Satan! It was a sad breakdown to the hopes that had ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Thornton Lyne had, as Tarling suspected rightly, been responsible for his mental collapse, might have supplied a great deal of information as to the events which led up to the day of the murder, and his dramatic breakdown had removed a witness who might have offered material assistance ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... interval than usual. Anne's hands and feet became nerveless bits of ice. Had his courage given out? Had he run away? Worse still, was he nerving himself to an ordeal to which he would prove unequal? A humiliating breakdown! Anne's blood pounded through her body as he finally emerged from the curtains, and she broke her fan, much to ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... entire deck of the brig. "Miss Trevor is still in her cabin, I take it, as I do not see her on deck. She has had a most trying and exhausting experience, and I hope, sir, you will afford her all the comfort at your command; otherwise she may suffer a serious breakdown. Fortunately, I am not without funds; and I can make it quite worth your while to treat us both well during the short time that I hope will only elapse ere you have an opportunity ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of civilization than that they are setting rapidly and irresistibly toward the general adoption of democratic forms of government. The oldest and greatest of the European nations, after trying almost every conceivable system, has returned, not so much from a deliberate preference as from the breakdown of every other, to that which had twice before failed as an experiment, but which now gives fair promise of successful and permanent operation—a republic based on universal suffrage. In many other countries what is virtually the same system in a somewhat different form seems ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... black box in the dark and the silence, down below where the spring can't get at it.... I had no sleep for two nights. On the second day a doctor at the hospital said that I must take at least three months' holiday. He said I'd had a nervous breakdown. I didn't know I had, and I don't know now. I said I wouldn't take any holiday, and that nothing would induce ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... have so far been the dangers with which we have had to contend. But the very worst feature of the defence is that no one trusts the neighbouring detachment sufficiently to believe that it will stand firm under all circumstances and not abandon its ground; consequently this fear that a sudden breakdown along some barricades will allow of an inrush of Chinese troops and Boxers makes men fight all the time with their eyes over their shoulders, which is the very worst way of fighting I can possibly imagine. And another hardly less important ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... now what public man it was who had died of a breakdown from overwork, but I heard Father Payne say, after dinner, referring to the event, "I wish it to be clearly understood that I think a man who dies of deliberate or reckless overwork is a victim of self-indulgence. ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a week at Balmoral by the breakdown of the coach on these dreadful roads, I telegraphed to Hamilton for a conveyance; and the Superintendent of the Sunday School, dear Mr. Laidlaw, volunteered, in order to reduce expenses, to spend one day of his precious ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... the ceiling. On the floor there were two straw mats, one piled on top of the other; and in a corner were spread a mattress and a bolster, nothing more. Inside there Coupeau was dancing and yelling, his blouse in tatters and his limbs beating the air. He wore the mask of one about to die. What a breakdown! He bumped up against the window, then retired backwards, beating time with his arms and shaking his hands as though he were trying to wrench them off and fling them in somebody's face. One meets with buffoons in low dancing places who imitate the delirium tremens, only they imitate it badly. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... begin before that summer morning. It was this way. We were three: the daughter-wife (who happened to see the magazine article that led to it all), her mother, and her husband. The head of the family, true to the spirit of the age, had achieved a nervous breakdown and was under instructions from his physician to betake himself upon a long, a ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... two generations were not to be discarded so quickly. Goldwin Smith asserted[1] that, whoever laid claim to the parentage of Confederation, the real parent was Deadlock. But this was the critic, not the historian, who spoke. The causes lay far deeper than in the breakdown of party government in Canada. Events of profound significance were about to change an atmosphere overladen with partisanship and to ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... is no further mention of the latter stages of Karl's passage in the wrecked boat to Zeebrugge, so it is presumed that he made that port without further adventure. He was evidently on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and appears to have been suffering from very severe insomnia. He had been hunted for two days, during which he was perpetually on the verge of destruction, and the cumulative effect of such an experience is ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... the early dawn. Don't tell me 'bout cotillions, or germans. No sir 'ee! That whirl at Anson City just takes the cake with me. I'm sick of lazy shufflin's, of them I've had my fill, Give me a fronteer breakdown, backed up by Windy Bill. McAllister ain't nowhere! when Windy leads the show, I've seen 'em both in harness, an' so I sorter know— Oh, Bill, I sha'n't forget yer, and I'll oftentimes recall, That lively-gaited sworray—"The Cowboys' Christmas Ball." ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... countess was overjoyed. But they found Madame Benet in a state of complete collapse. The conduct of the Germans had brought about a nervous breakdown. ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... point for a long while, or to perform such rapid movements, or to retain the numbers correctly, does not lead to fatal accidents like those in the case of the unfit motormen, but it does lead to fatigue and finally to a nervous breakdown of the employees and to confusion in the service. The result is that the company is continually obliged to dismiss a considerable proportion of those who have entered the service and who have spent some months in going through the training school ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... keeping with his gray hairs, his sixty years, and his clerical profession. 'Massa Joe' and the others striking in, the male and female darkies paired off two by two, and to a lively air began dancing a sort of 'cotillion breakdown.' Other dances followed, in which the little negroes joined, and soon the air rang with the creak of the fiddles and the merry shouts of the negroes. In the midst of it my arm was touched lightly, and, turning round, I saw Rosey ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... children (or for that matter, adults) in public, for if he seems anxious and distressed, or worse yet, if he informs the singers that he is afraid that they will not do well, his uneasiness is almost sure to be communicated to the performers and there will probably be a panic and perhaps even a breakdown. If the conductor seriously feels that the compositions to be performed have not been rehearsed sufficiently, it will be far better for him either to insist upon extra rehearsals (even at considerable inconvenience), or else upon a postponement of the performance. A good rule to ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... fact that many of the draftees, the product of vastly inferior schooling, were incompetent. Where black volunteers had to pass the corps' rigid entrance requirements, draftees had (p. 104) only to meet the lowest selective service standards. An exact breakdown of black Marine Corps draftees by General Classification Test category is unavailable for the war period. A breakdown of some 15,000 black enlisted men, however, was compiled ten weeks after V-J day and included many of those drafted during the war. Category ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... existence in which she found herself alone with the still, broken body of her lover. For one brief instant her lips quivered, and a faint in-catching of the breath told of the woman, which, at the first return of feeling, had leapt uppermost in her. But before the maturity of emotion brought about the breakdown, a calm strength came to her aid and steadied her nerves and checked the tears which had so suddenly come into her eyes. Women are like this. At a crisis in sickness they rise superior to all emotion. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... He was passing a wood at the time, and the windy tumult as well as the roaring from the loch made confusion for his hearing; but presently he recognised the intruding sound as the throbbing of a motor. "Some silly fool got a breakdown," he was thinking sympathetically, when a terrific gust caught and fairly staggered him. Ere he fully recovered balance and breath something cold and clammy fell upon his face, was dragged down over his shoulders and arms, blinding, pinioning him. The suit case was rudely wrenched ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... it's all rot! Do you think I believe for one instant—" He broke off. "And so's a nervous breakdown all rot, isn't it, and D.T.? They aren't real ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... Compton listened with intense excitement; but the hunter treated the whole thing calmly, with set purpose. He had in his experience seen the effect of a terrible shock, in the complete breakdown of the victim, and, personally, he had known one man die from the shock to his system caused exactly by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a lion at night. He kept Venning's thoughts off the mental picture of the charging ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... almost a mind reader," laughed Grace. "I've been on the verge of a breakdown ever since we left Oakdale, and in this very instant I made up my mind to be brave and not cry a single tear. Look at Anne. She is as calm and unemotional as ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... sickness has bitterly delayed my work; and unless, as I say, I have the mischief's luck, I shall completely break down. VERBUM SAPIENTIBUS. I do not live cheaply, and I question if I ever shall; but if only I had a halfpenny worth of health, I could now easily suffice. The last breakdown of my head is ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little, that we are apt to see only the stage effects, so to speak, of these great movements; the fight of the first days; the barricades. But this fight, this first skirmish, is soon ended, and it only after the breakdown of the old system that the real work of revolution can be said ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... remarks on the causes of the moral breakdown of the Empire and of the French army do not help us to much that is novel. He lays more than the usual stress on Ultramontanism as an influence. The death of the archbishop of Paris could have been prevented, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... 13. Nervous breakdown. Epilepsy. Tumor or break in brain. Cranial neuralgia. Disease of neck bones. Adenoids. Ear disease. Eye ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... that the stronghold of Inclusionism is in aeronautics. I think that the stronghold of the Old Dominant, when it was new, was in the invention of the telescope. Or that coincidentally with the breakdown of Exclusionism appears the means of finding out—whether there are vast aerial fields of ice and floating lakes full of frogs and fishes or not—where carved stones and black substances and great quantities of vegetable matter and flesh, ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... merely to keep it in existence, this does not vitiate the fact that, when free of all external constraint, growth gains on waste. Indeed, even in the case of old age, the statement remains essentially true, for the phenomena then displayed point to a breakdown of the functioning power of the cell, an approximation to configurations incapable of assimilation. It is not as if life showed in these phenomena that its conditions could obtain in the midst of abundance, and yet its law be suspended; but as if they represented a degradation ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... what's the basic problem? Why do security measures strangle research? Isn't it a matter basically of a breakdown in the interchange of ideas? Sure, and it has come about because there has been no method of communication which would not get to and be used by our enemies. So, like yourself, I'm forbidden to publish the results of my work here in the journals. Why? Because those results are in my field of study, ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... automobile containing Feisul and Lawrence, which may be recognized easily as it will also contain myself and another civilian in plain clothes. At the psychological moment a white flag will be shown from it, waved perhaps surreptitiously by one of the civilians. In the event of breakdown of the automobile a horsed vehicle will be used and the same signal will apply. For the sake of myself and the other civilian, please instruct all officers to keep a sharp lookout and protect the party ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... that pressed like a weight upon him. Even before this time he had observed a little discrepancy between his father's words and deeds, between his wide liberal theories and his harsh petty despotism; but he had not expected such a complete breakdown. His confirmed egoism was patent now in everything. Young Lavretsky was getting ready! to go to Moscow, to prepare for the university, when a new unexpected calamity overtook Ivan Petrovitch; he became blind, and ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... to be reassured quickly. It was very seldom that her equanimity was disturbed, only in fact when her deepest feelings were concerned, and this made her breakdown the more complete. She apologised tearfully for her foolishness at rehearsal, which she set down to bodily fatigue. She had been to see poor Squinny that morning, and she thought he really was dying at last. He had cried so, and she hadn't known how to comfort him, and then when she ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... an idea that this was all going to be rather solemn if she let it be. But she was going to give her very best imitation of undiluted sunshine, the imitation she could give even when her head was splitting or when her mother had a nervous breakdown or when she was particularly romantic and curious and courageous. This brother of hers undoubtedly needed cheering up, and he was going to be cheered up, whether he ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... percent British other than Irish, 12 percent Scandinavian, and the Poles, Bohemians, and Italians formed about 5 percent. The strong predominance of the foreign element in American trade unions should not appear unusual, since, owing to the breakdown of the apprenticeship system, the United States had been drawing its supply of skilled labor ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... meet with respectful treatment anywhere. He gave me a pass which would further insure my well being, and so, when a boat load of stores was shipped to Head of Elk the first of this week, I came with it. Everything hath gone off well until this breakdown, and I do not regret that, since it hath brought us together. So you see, Peggy, the matter is ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... out," said Mrs Davidson pitifully. "He'll have a breakdown if he doesn't take care, ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... to conquer or to die, and that if defeated, he would never return to Paris alive. It was evident by their tone that at the time the proclamations were penned it was intended that the battle should take place on that day, and that the delay was consequent upon a breakdown in the arrangements and was not the result ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... the trees as they seemed to help him bear the pain miraculously. But on second consideration Don Quixote deemed it advisable to put it off till a later time, when they were closer to their village, in case Sancho should have a breakdown as a result of his flogging himself. Their conversation came to an end when Sancho began to shoot proverbs at his master out of the corner of his mouth at such a speed that Don Quixote was overwhelmed and ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of our happy preparations the bad news fell with bomb-like suddenness. The messenger who brought the telegram whistled shrilly and shuffled a breakdown on the doorstep while he waited to hear ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... adjoining room and came back in a minute dragging a half-frightened, half-pleased little Belgian scullery maid and whirled her about to waltz music until she dropped for want of breath to carry her another turn; after which he did a solo—Teutonic version—of a darky breakdown, stopping only to ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... were symptoms of another breakdown, our middy became anxious, and entreated Hester to go on. With a strong effort ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... I fancy,' said Marcella. 'We had nearly an hour's talk before you came. But she won't be able to stand the work. There'll be another breakdown before long.' ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... and more. She trembled. She felt on the verge of a breakdown ... Carolus Fonta wondered if she was ill, if she could keep the stage until the end of the Garden Act. In the front of the house, people remembered the catastrophe that had befallen Carlotta at the end of that act and the historic ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... his energetic movement when among the men, had a sympathetic influence upon all about him. His voice had the same sort of influence upon them as the drum and fife on a soldier's march: it quickened their movements. We were often called in by our neighbour manufacturers to repair a breakdown of their engines. That was always a sad disaster, as all hands were idle until the repair was effected. Archy was in his glory on such occasions. By his ready zeal and energy he soon got over the difficulty, repaired the engines, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... efficiently. Moreover, since most of the projects of social reform which are being urged upon our attention involve an enlargement of the activities of the State, it is obvious that we shall be running the risk of a breakdown unless we make sure that the machinery of the State is capable of meeting the demands which are made upon it. We must be satisfied that our engine has sufficient power before we require it to draw a double load. In truth, one reason why the engine of government is not ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... up, smiling. She recognized the characteristic utterance of her old friend Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch had sustained a breakdown, and arrived, in consequence, when the dance was half over, but she was philosophical, as always, in the face of misfortune, and loudly attested her pleasure in the renowned pedal feats ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... overwrought to a terrible degree. I am delighted that she is to get a rest. It will be life to her; and in the morning she will be all right. Her nervous system is on the verge of a breakdown. Did you notice how fearfully disturbed she was, and how red she got when she came in and found us talking? An ordinary thing like that, in her own house with her own guests, wouldn't under normal circumstances ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... was no more than a shambles. There were twenty odd men in it when the shells struck. Seven were carried out alive, and four of these died in the moving. In the other room, where the two doctors worked, no damage was done beyond the breakdown of a portion of the partition wall, and there was only one further casualty—a man who was actually having a slight hand-wound examined at the moment. He was killed instantly by a shell fragment which whizzed through the door-way. The two doctors, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... the breakdown of national government, most regions have reverted to Islamic (Shari'a) law with a provision for appeal ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of the state of affairs at Scutari, revealed to the English public in the dispatches of "The Times Correspondent", and in a multitude of private letters, yet the reality turned out to be darker still. What had occurred was, in brief, the complete breakdown of our medical arrangements at the seat of war. The origins of this awful failure were complex and manifold; they stretched back through long years of peace and carelessness in England; they could be traced ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... plainly, that Daniel Otway wasn't the kind of man she ought to be friendly with. She was offended: it was one of the reasons why we couldn't go on living together. I believe, if the truth were known, it was worry about him that caused her breakdown in health. She's a weak, soft-natured woman, and he—I know very well what he is. He and the other one—both Piers Otway's brothers—have always been worthless creatures. She knew it well enough, and yet——! ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... limits of this country in the initial stages of a campaign. For the much larger force which we have actually found it necessary to employ our resources were absolutely and miserably inadequate. The result has been that the department, even by working under conditions which have nearly led to a breakdown, has been barely able to keep pace with ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... quiet—complete change," he said. "Nervous breakdown, according to the doctors—that's what they always call it, you know, when they can't find any other name for it. I've been overdoing it, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... there is a sort of reflex fright. He becomes either cautious and liable to sudden panics, or very rash indeed, or absolutely mechanical in his actions. The first state means the approach of a nervous breakdown, the second a near death. There are very few, indeed, who retain a nervous balance and a calm judgment. And all have a harsh frightened voice. If you came suddenly out here, you would think they were all mortally afraid. But it is ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... tall might easily have frightened Mr. Wordsley into a nervous breakdown by staring at him with that gaunt, hollow-eyed stare, but this creature, though manlike, was fully fifty feet tall, incredibly elongated, and stark naked. Its hair was long and matted; its cheeks sunken, its lips pulled back in an expression which might have been anything from a smile ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns |
