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Downfall   /dˈaʊnfˌɔl/   Listen
Downfall

noun
1.
Failure that results in a loss of position or reputation.  Synonyms: ruin, ruination.
2.
The falling to earth of any form of water (rain or snow or hail or sleet or mist).  Synonym: precipitation.
3.
A sudden decline in strength or number or importance.  Synonym: fall.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Downfall" Quotes from Famous Books



... country, and sincerely hope for the downfall of her enemies," she answered soberly, "I do not delight in suffering. Were you in that terrible cavalry charge? They tell me scarcely a ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... Venetian chronicler, reports: "When this news reached Venice the whole city felt it greatly, and remained stupefied, and the wisest held it as the worst news that had ever arrived"—as indeed they might, for it prophesied the downfall of the Venetian Empire. The Sultan of Egypt was equally moved, for the greatest source of his riches was derived from the duty of five per cent. which he levied on all merchandise entering his dominions, ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... all true—this was the war time—he was badly wounded, and his enemy, Scarlett Markham, the young Cavalier, was bending over him in mocking triumph at his downfall, and revenging himself for the insult he had received in the loss of ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... attracts the eye. The contrast between the mass of architecture and the free and glowing country beyond is not without meaning, and a broken Roman torso, lying neglected on the ground, symbolises the downfall of the Pagan Empire. The flight of steps, with the figure sitting below them, is an idea borrowed from Carpaccio, and perhaps taken by him from the sketch-book of Jacopo Bellini. The men on the left are portraits of members and patrons of the confraternity. Most Titianesque are the beautiful women ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... the temptations of the flesh, my children," said the priest. "The Evil One is very subtle, and not only in our moments of pride and prosperity, but also in our hours of sorrow and affliction, he is for ever waiting and watching to betray us to our downfall and damnation." ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... executing of severe laws to bring it to pass: endeavouring to terrify them out of their holy way, or destroy them for abiding faithful to it. But thou hast seen how many governments that rose against them, and determined their downfall, have been overturned and extinguished, and that they are still preserved, and become a great and a considerable people, among the middle sort of thy numerous inhabitants. And notwithstanding the many difficulties ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn

... have got to bring yourself up with a round turn. In some way or other, you have missed your chances. You have gone rushing off for shiny butterflies, when you ought to have stopped at home and milked the cows. Something," he smiled; "Whittenden says it was my downfall, set you to asking questions that you were too nearsighted to answer. Instead of sticking to a few fundamental bits of faith, you made yourself a ladder out of theological catchwords, clambered up it and kicked out all the rungs, one after another, as you climbed. Then you turned dizzy, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... greatness of the change anticipates the slow effects of time and reflection:—they at once contemplate themselves from an immense distance, and look up with speculative wonder at the height on which they stood. Had the downfall been less complete, it would have been more galling and borne with less resignation, because there might still be a chance of remedying it by farther efforts and farther endurance—but past cure, past hope. It is chiefly this cause (together with something of constitutional ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... collections relating to the Norman Osbornes, from whom I have reasons to believe him to have been descended. Those Osbornes can be proved to have been settled in certain of the midland counties of England from the time of the attainder and downfall of the son of William Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford and premier peer, down to a comparatively late period. A branch of them was possessed of the manor of Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire; and their pedigree, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various

... a howling young ass in the regiment from which I exchanged. He was always giving himself airs, on the strength of the title he expected to get; and if he is still in the regiment, there will be general rejoicings at his downfall." ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... strenuously opposed, both in and out of parliament. Those who were ardently attached to the vital principles of Protestantism felt an apprehension that the endowment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland, and the rapid downfall of the established church in that country, if not in England also, was involved in such a measure; and their zeal being thus awakened, no exertions were spared to frustrate the plans of government. On the second reading of the bill being ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... this very account, however, the book will be less popular, and fewer persons will admire it wholly; but, as thoughtful readers draw near to the end of the narrative, and anxiously hasten on past trial, temptation, and conflict, to the dreaded and yet inevitable downfall, muse mournfully over the agony and remorse that follow, and slowly close the volume upon tender forgiveness and final joy, they will be thankful for the far-seeing genius which, by this gradual process of education, enabled them to understand clearly the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... ten years because I got into trouble over a few accounts at the bank—and considering the sorry figure I cut now in consequence—I don't know why you should be so careless of the possibility of partaking my downfall! I should say that it would be rather worse for you than it has been for me; and it hasn't been very nice for ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... spot where the battle had been fought. Bull had flung himself forthwith at the throat of the French Canadian almost before the last syllable of the insult had passed the man's lips. And the end of nearly a two hours' battle had been the downfall of the bully, with the name of Bull Sternford hailed as a fighting man ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... Smuythe family carriage, drawn by the two 1,500-pound, 100 to 1-shot bays. The carriage is shaped like a bath-tub. In each end of it reclines an old lady Van Smuythe holding a black sunshade the size of a New Year's Eve feather tickler. Before his downfall Thomas McQuade drove the Van Smuythe bays and was himself driven by Annie, the Van Smuythe lady's maid. But it is one of the saddest things about romance that a tight shoe or an empty commissary or an aching tooth will make a temporary heretic of any Cupid-worshiper. And ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... against those of Admiral Dewey, and intent on deceiving him and on securing from him arms to be used first against the Spaniards and later against the Americans, after they had been employed to help bring about the downfall of Spain. ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, asserted its rights and became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders and effecting the downfall of ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... N. {ant. 161} destruction; waste, dissolution, breaking up; diruption[obs3], disruption; consumption; disorganization. fall, downfall, devastation, ruin, perdition, crash; eboulement[French], smash, havoc, delabrement[French], debacle; break down, break up, fall apart; prostration; desolation, bouleversement[Fr], wreck, wrack, shipwreck, cataclysm; washout. extinction, annihilation; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Le Debacle, Zola shows in a vivid and intelligible manner the downfall of Napoleon III. and his army, and paints in his usual matter-of-fact tints the actual condition of the great host led forth to destruction. He makes us read in the soul of the common French soldier and in that of his commanding officer. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... Elephant Power The Oracle The Cast-iron Canvasser The Merino Sheep The Bullock White-when-he's-wanted The Downfall of Mulligan's The Amateur Gardener Thirsty Island Dan Fitzgerald Explains The Cat Sitting in Judgment The Dog The Dog—as a Sportsman Concerning a Steeplechase Rider Victor Second Concerning a ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... in his career does the speaker give his story? What have been his motives? How was he at first treated? What indicates that the change is not in him, but in the fickle mob? How does he view his downfall? In what thought lies his sense of triumph? How does ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... mirth, sprang from the cutter and came to his aid. There was something to arouse pity in the downfall of the man of strength. Neither by word nor sign did Sandy recognize either his or Elsie Cameron's presence. The atmosphere was too highly charged to admit of ordinary courtesies. When the two men had trampled a wide pathway, and made it sufficiently smooth and firm, the Duke of Wellington ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... degree to circumstances that occurred in the life of the writer. During the eventful year of 1813, when the movement broke out which ultimately freed Germany from the yoke of her oppressor, and precipitated his downfall, Chamisso was in Berlin. Everyone who could wield a sword hastened then to employ it on behalf of Germany and of the good cause. Chamisso had not only a powerful arm, but a heart also of truly German mould; and yet he was placed in a situation so peculiar as to isolate him among millions. As he ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.

... the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?" And in his conscious integrity he might well shrill a cry to his own breaking heart. Job is sure (some things calamity reveals) integrity is not awarded according to its character and worth, while his three friends see in Job's downfall a disclosure of his wickedness. They urge him to repent. They think there can be no arguing against doom. God has smitten him for his sins,—this they all agree, and say no other thing. Poor Job! ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... poured into his willing ear all she had learned of the girl he was seeking; and before the woman ceased her freely-flowing talk, a most important item had been added to his knowledge of the case. Carlia, it seems, had gone literally helpless to her downfall. "Drugged" was the word Mrs. Whitman used. The villainy of the foul deed moved the young man's spirit to a fierce anger against the wretch who had planned it, and the same time his pity increased for the unfortunate victim. As Dorian sat ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... the chunk of hair was his last triumph. His downfall was near; and, although it involved Cecily in a most humiliating experience, over which she cried half the following night, in the end she confessed it was worth undergoing just to get rid ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... never boasted of being an exclusive church, whose doctrines are more Scriptural or whose confessors are purer than those of other denominations round about us. . . . We will gladly unite with every friend of the Gospel in producing the downfall of sectarianism, though not the obliteration of sects. Our pulpits have ever been open to the servants of every Christian communion, and we invite to our communion tables the followers of Jesus ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... people; and it was not without a violent struggle, that the civil and military powers of the state could restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious ministers, Count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master of the mint were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public prison. At the end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by the rage of a superstitious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... between two chief Pagan deities, there seems to be preserved an old native tradition. In the Pampangan story not only is the curse of the crow attributed to a Pagan deity, Sinukuan, but the occasion of the bird's downfall is a pestilence. There is no mention whatever of a flood, nor ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... shake my head. Not even Barbara will I allow to witness the failure of my dreams, the downfall of my high castles, the sterility of my ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... of the Tammany leaders, was appointed Collector of the Port of New York. His downfall came in 1838, and he fled to Europe. His defalcations in the Custom House were found to be over $1,222,700; and "to Swartwout" became a useful phrase until Tweed's day. He was succeeded by Jesse Hoyt, another sachem and notorious politician, against whom several judgments ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth

... regarding the causes of the downfall of Portuguese trade in the sixteenth century will not be misunderstood. It is not in any spirit of criticism or comparison that I have written those passages. History, however, is history; and it is a fact that while ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... had not yet arrived. There was no telling, however, how long the respite might last. At any moment might commence this conference, whose avowed purpose was to break at a single blow, a single treacherous but deadly blow, the Empire whose downfall Selingman had once publicly declared was the one great necessity involved by ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of his new country awaited Philip in the morning (July 21); he had come from the sunny plains of Castile; from his window at Southampton he looked out upon a steady downfall of July rain. Through the cruel torrent[341] he made his way to the church again to mass, and afterwards Gardiner came to him from the queen. In the afternoon the sky cleared, and the Duchess of Alva, who had accompanied her husband, was taken out in ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... to which even his street life had not given him access; and if anybody's brain ever appeared ripe for mischief of any sort, it was certainly Tode Mall's. Any earthly friend, if he had possessed one, would have watched his course just now with trembling terror, and made predictions of his certain downfall. But Tode had no friend in all that great city; not one who ever gave him a second thought. Christian men came there often, and were faithfully served by the boy whose soul was very precious in their Master's eyes, but his servants never thought ...
— Three People • Pansy

... ambition of its future governors. Already the good effects of these are to be perceived; and the excessive abuses, insolence, and profligacy, of ancient ministerial oppression, which paved the way for the downfall of the monarchy, and, like a pestilence, destroyed that which was good with that which was evil, ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes

... salary of about two pounds five shillings a month! Under the skilled hands of the artist we are permitted to see the tall, gloomy lad grow up a dull, reserved man, and we read in his face a part at least of the causes of Spain's ultimate downfall. ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan

... mother had lived there had been none of them about. For all her personal downfall, Elinka, Markrute's sister, and an emperor's daughter, remained an absolute grande dame—never mixing or mingling with any people but ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... upon the future," replied Lucian coolly, and forthwith went away in low spirits at the downfall of his hopes. Far from revealing the mystery of Vrain's death, his late attempts to solve it had resulted in utter failure. Lydia had cleared herself; Ferruci had proved himself innocent; and Lucian could not make up his mind what ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... established. This, however, was probably an exaggeration, for the royal account books showed a less formidable sum, although a sufficiently large one to appal a less obstinate bigot than Philip. But what to him were the, ruin of the Netherlands; the impoverishment of Spain, and the downfall of her ancient grandeur compared to the glory of establishing the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of Patricia and faced them with a still and deadly eye, and with the hand that held the knife drawn back against his breast. Knowing them, he saw no use in any appeal; also he saw that it was indeed her life or theirs. On the one hand, the downfall of all their hopes, the death or perpetual enslavement of many, and for himself surely the gibbet and the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... conscious of a strange conflict of feelings. The triumph she had promised herself by David Rossi's presence with her in public—the triumph over the envious ones who would have rejoiced in her downfall—brought her no pleasure. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... civilization, was not an external force, but the very spirit of man by which that civilization had been created. There is a puzzling line in Homer which is applied once or twice to features in a landscape—for instance, to a river: 'The gods call it Xanthos, mankind Skamandros.' So we might say of the downfall of Greece: the Greeks attributed it to the malignity of God, but the divine oracles gave ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... Family of the Primates! That 'the British Empire is an empire' affords no matter for doubt or inquiry; but how difficult to judge whether the British Empire resembles Assyria, Egypt, Rome, Spain in those characters and circumstances that caused their downfall! ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... story "Resurrection" has for its central anecdote in the opening chapter a court-room scene in which a judge is called upon to sentence to prison a woman for whose downfall he had, years before, been responsible. A somewhat similar story in real life, with a happier ending, was told me by the head of a woman's reformatory. This official received a visit from a lawyer, ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... to make one think of that solemn message: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble"? They who lived in that small house under the tree knew little of all that passed in the big world. Trumpet blasts of fame, thunder of rise and downfall, came faintly to them. There the delights of art and luxury were unknown. Yet those simple folk were acquainted with pleasure and even with thrilling and impressive incidents. Field and garden teemed with eventful life and hard by was the great ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... Axe," and others are a fascinating combination of the strange and the familiar. A different land, a different people, a different kind of magic all come to life in these colorful, imaginative tales. And yet running through them are such universal folk themes as the inevitable downfall of the greedy and the foolish. In all of these adventures there is a keen sense of the Japanese countryside with its mountains and sea, rice fields, deep green forests, and ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... readily how much Christianity, in its victory over Greek philosophy, owes to this very philosophy. Christianity could no doubt have achieved the moral and social regeneration of the people without these weapons of the Greek mind; but a religion, especially in the age of the downfall of Greek and Roman philosophy, must have been armed for battle with the best, the most cultured, and the most learned classes of society, and such a battle demanded a knowledge of the weapons which had been forged in the schools of ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... Men defended themselves in a short brilliant expression; and if that did not protect them, they died with a lively apophthegm, and their last words were wit. This was the fashion introduced by Seneca. The peculiar, but agreeable vices of his style, wrought the downfall of eloquence. The solid was exchanged for the brilliant, and they, who ceased to be orators, studied to ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... indicate that France is wearied with the republic, and that it is perhaps nearly ready to restore the throne of the Lilies. Young man, shall this reestablished throne fall into the hands of that man who contributed so much to its downfall—who was the calumniator, the secret enemy of Queen Marie Antoinette? Would you consent that the Count de Provence should be ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... give Dr. Grayson, the astonishment and disappointment of the Winnebagos, the coldness of the beloved councilors—and Jane Pratt! How could she ever humble herself before Jane Pratt and witness Jane's keen relish of her downfall? She could hear Jane's spiteful laughter, her malicious remarks, her unrestrained rejoicing ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... commoner was rather sudden. I went alone to Boston, and when I reached out my free pass, the conductor read it through and handed it back, saying in a gruff voice, 'It's worth nothing; a dollar and a quarter to Boston.' Think what a downfall! ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... were just about to celebrate my downfall, I perceive, by pouring a libation," Weir said. "Don't let me interrupt. Only I must request you to conduct the proceedings there where you're standing, Vorse, instead of at the rear of the room: Madden and I wish a good view of the ceremony. If Mr. Sorenson will be so agreeable as ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... and both besieged and besiegers, perched in various attitudes along the low roof like a flock of variegated chickens, were soon merrily celebrating the downfall ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... go into a State in which a downfall is imminent, nor take up his abode in one where disorder reigns. When the empire is well ordered he will show himself; when not, he will hide himself away. Under a good government it will be a disgrace to him if he remain in poverty and low estate; under a bad ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... Lord There's fever in your cheek. The day's distress Has worked some downfall to your ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman

... Gurta; "you'll improve in time, though you make wry faces, now that you're young. Well, and have you brought me any news from the capitol? Is any one getting a rise in the world, or a downfall? How blows the wind? Are there changes in the camp? This Decius, I suspect, will not ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... a lad of seventeen when, in 1750, he was first sent out to India as a writer in the East India Company's service. His abilities attracted the notice of Clive, and, after the downfall of the Nawab Suraj-u-Dowlah, Hastings was chosen to represent the Company at the Court of Mir Jafir, the new Nawab of Bengal. In 1761 he was appointed Member of Council at Calcutta, and he returned to England in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... which, following close upon each other, disgusted our officers, disheartened our soldiers, and finally sunk us all into irretrievable ruin, as though Heaven itself, by a combination of evil circumstances, for its own inscrutable purposes, had planned our downfall. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... Honey Tone Boone's downfall had been accomplished in Memphis immediately subsequent to a Konk'rin' Heroes' parade. There had been some talk about the ownership of the mule which Honey Tone rode. The line of march headed straight for Honey Tone's wife and his potential soul mate and culminated in a ruckus ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... a series of events, the prosperity of the one and the downfall of the other; the riches and honour that crown the head of industry, and the ignominy and destruction that await the slothful. After this it would be unnecessary to say which is the most eligible path to tread. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... at length the essence of Pyrrhonism as presented by Sextus Empiricus, it now remains to briefly note the characteristics that formed its strength and weakness, and the causes of its final downfall. Herbart says that every philosopher is a Sceptic in the beginning, but every Sceptic remains always in the beginning. This remark may well be applied to Pyrrhonism. We find in its teachings many fundamental philosophical truths which might ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... insult to himself Ernest was not much concerned. His regretful astonishment centred in the spectacle of Raymond's downfall. ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... own professional downfall. He looked and must have felt utterly miserable. He had done wrong and he knew it. And he was not one to let his friends get any blame for what he had ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell

... impossible for the wisest man to form any satisfactory judgment upon the course of events. It was clear to every one that ever since 1848 the temporal power had been sustained by France; and though no one in 1865 foresaw the downfall of the Second Empire, no one saw any reason for supposing that the military protectorate of Louis Napoleon in Rome could last for ever: what would be likely to occur if that protection were withdrawn was indeed a matter of doubt, but was not ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... firecrackers. What a singular change in a bloodthirsty revolutionist. And how childish! Had he squandered his millions on futile experimentings? What his object, what his scheme, for the amelioration of mankind's woes? Gerald's stomach warned him that coffee and rolls were far dearer to him than the downfall of tyranny's bastions, and impatiently he began whistling. The rhythmic thud never ceased. He noticed an open door at the back of the house, and he went out, his long legs carrying him about the yard, toward the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... melancholy particulars. You shall see him, and judge for yourself; although I fear this visit, useless to him, will be insufferably painful to you. It has weighed on my spirits ever since. Excellent and gentle as he is even in the downfall of his reason, I do not worship him as you do, but I would give all my hopes of a crown and my right hand to boot, to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... which she could enjoy; and that a taste for reading began to wake in her. If ever she came to school with her lesson unprepared, it was because some book of travel or history had had attractions too strong for her. And all that day she would go about like a guilty thing, oppressed by a sense of downfall and neglected duty. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... introduction to a famous anthology of the seventeenth century, the Epigrammatum delectus, a Port-Royal textbook published at Paris in 1659.[1] The essay was twice translated into French in the same century, but the use of the text in France did not survive, apparently, the downfall of the Port-Royal movement. It was, however, later adopted by Eton College, where it was used in the sixth form.[2] The text went through thirteen English editions between 1683 and 1762. The author of the essay, and a collaborator ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole

... intends to return the "loan" next day, but repairing an error is even more difficult than resisting a temptation, and when a man is in crime's net, his struggles to escape seem only to tighten around him its meshes. When the incidents of his downfall are before the jury or the coroner, there will always appear a dozen places where the unfortunate might have cut his way out of the strangling coils, but he who surveys such situations from the outside has a clearer ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... Deputations from the provinces were sent to England, and they were answered by the dispatch of an army, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, to the coast of Portugal. The British general then commenced that series of victories which finished only in the capitulation of Paris, and the downfall of Napoleon. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... courting his Galatea; but as no Cyclops existed in this classical island I determined to risk the chances of a rock-displacement and to pitch the tent upon a flat surface among the fallen blocks. As a rule such localities should be avoided. It is impossible to calculate the probable downfall of a crag, which, having formed a portion of the cliff, has been undermined by the breaking away of lower rocks, and, overhanging the perpendicular, may be secure during dry weather, but may become dislodged in heavy rain, when the cement-like surroundings are dissolved: the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... words of the young prince—for Charles Stuart, though despicable as a king, was ever loving and loyal as a friend—were as oil upon the troubled waters. The ruffled temper of the ambassador of Spain—who in after years really did work Raleigh's downfall and death—gave place to courtly bows, and the King's quick anger melted away before the dearly loved ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... use as a pretext for war Russia's refusal to adopt his "continental system" fully. This system, designed to crush the commercial supremacy of England by forbidding other countries to trade with her, was thus, as events were to prove, the cause of Napoleon's own downfall. ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... the separate tribes remained in existence. The other states of the east, however, were military states, made up of individuals with no tribal allegiance but subject to a military commandant. But where there is no tribal association, after the political downfall of a state founded by ethnical groups, those groups sooner or later disappear as such. We see this in the years immediately following Fu Chien's collapse: the Tibetan ethnical group to which he himself belonged disappeared entirely from ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... When Napoleon met his downfall, it was also a Waterloo for General Hugo. His property was confiscated, and penury took the place ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... light-hearted at the time, about woman's place in the state. Since then she had been wondering whether she could still say that it was enough for her to be a wife. She was perfectly sure that she did not miss the outer satisfactions of being Ovid's wife. Except as they indicated his downfall, she did not regret the loss of her former place in society or the desertion of many of their so-called friends. Indeed, she had welcomed as her only comfort whatever share she could have in his losses. But was it true ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... been in some other form, it might have been shown that he was the guilty party; whereas now it would seem that you were the author of your own misfortune, while the real agent of the occurrence goes unsuspected, and exults in your downfall." ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... that it was a symbol of the downfall of the Order of Templars, and its hoped-for restoration. In some of the high philosophical degrees it is supposed to be a symbol of the sufferings, death, and resurrection Christ. Hutchinson thought it a symbol of the decadence of the Jewish ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... of recreation, they presented, as a class, one of the most amazing social anomalies ever existing in any nation; and formed, in their dangerous and artificial position, one of the most important of the internal causes of the downfall of Rome. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... continue, and their vote increase in the same ratio for the next four years, it will be as large as the vote of the actual slaveholders of the Union. Such a prospect is, doubtless, extremely gratifying to you. It gives hope of a contest on such terms as may insure the downfall of slavery or our Constitution. The South venerates the Constitution, and is prepared to stand by it forever, such as it came from the hands of our fathers; to risk every thing to defend and maintain it in its integrity. But the South is under no such delusion ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... to explain to me may be a joke—a slightly unfeeling joke. It may be your sincere view, in which case I ask your pardon for the former suggestion. But, in any case, it appears quite irrelevant to my duties. The mental morbidity, the mental downfall, of Professor Chadd, is a thing so painful to me that I cannot easily endure to speak of it. But it is clear there is a limit to everything. And if the Archangel Gabriel went mad it would sever his connection, I am sorry to say, with ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... could do to keep himself from asking Mr. McEachern whether he attributed his downfall to drink. He contented himself with a sorrowful shake of the head at the fermenting captive. Then, he took up the ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... with the Thirteenth Legion of cavalry and two battalions of the Banlieu, were drawn up from the Church of the Madeleine to the Column of July. And, there, at the base of that column erected in commemoration of the Revolution which had made Louis Philippe King of the French, his downfall was commemorated, and on the ruins of the throne then established was ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... composure had already broken down, burst into tears again, perhaps mostly at the downfall of all his own expectations and glorifications of the kinsman about whom he had boasted. Ambrose only exclaimed "O uncle, you must have been hard pressed." For indeed the grave, almost melancholy man, who stood before them, regarding them wistfully, had little in common with the lithe ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... relation imposed. In essence she was no longer his wife, but a criminal enemy who, with deliberate and abounding malice, had destroyed him. He could go to the grave with a willing heart, but he could not permit her to live and enjoy his downfall and gloat ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... conscious of a remarkable exhilaration. He felt insanely light-hearted. He laughed aloud at the thought that until then he had completely forgotten the very existence of these earnest seekers after his downfall. He threw back his head and shouted. There was something so ridiculous in their assumption that they mattered to a man ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... daylight and when the weather is fair, is almost untraversable in winter. The night in question was Christmas Eve; the snow had fallen heavily during the day, and with the wind blowing in icy draughts from the north-east, there was every prospect of another downfall. Maitland pressed me to stay in his hotel. 'It is sheer folly,' he said, 'for you to attempt to get home in weather like this. It is pitch dark, you are not familiar with the route, and if you don't wander off the track ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... made matters worse. If she was the daughter of a man dishonored by some treason against his country, she could not marry Dick. She had already refused to do so, but she did not want to be logical. It was simpler to hate him as the cause of her father's downfall. The latter had always indulged her, and now she understood that he would land in Brazil penniless, or at least impoverished. Since he was accustomed to extravagance, it was painful to think ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... complete and genuine democratization of the State and public economy, and a system of education equally accessible to all: only then can we say that the monopoly of class and culture has been smashed. But the cessation of the workless income will show the downfall of the last of class-monopolies, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... influence upon the chances of victory. The event painfully undeceived him, and although his generous heart warmed with the same love for him whose valour, profitless even though it proved, was sufficiently attested by the shattered condition of almost every vessel of his little Squadron, he read in the downfall of him in whose aid he had so much confided, the annihilation of the English power in that remote region of the Canadas, and the consequent destruction of all his hopes of retrieving his race from the hated thraldom of American tyranny and American usurpation. Such was ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... "made in Germany." The armies against us are the last word in discipline, fitness, and equipment; and are led by men who, born in barracks, weaned on munitions, have but one aim and end in view "World-Dominion or Downfall." ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... improvement of his depressed city. It was not long before he aroused the opposition which has often come to public benefactors, and was obliged to flee from Carthage. From that time, he was a wanderer on the earth. Ever true to his hatred of Rome, however, he continued to plot for her downfall even in his exile. He went to Tyre and then to Ephesus, and tried to lead the Syrian monarch Antiochus to make successful inroads upon his old enemy. Obliged to flee in turn from Ephesus, he sought an asylum at ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... intolerance against the Wesleyans, and expressing his fears that their efforts to disparage him would be renewed on their departure, and the flight of the pope from Rome, of which they had heard, represented as the downfall of the Catholic Church. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... old Adams likenesse, set to dresse this Garden: How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this vnpleasing newes What Eue? what Serpent hath suggested thee, To make a second fall of cursed man? Why do'st thou say, King Richard is depos'd, Dar'st thou, thou little better thing then earth, Diuine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how Cam'st thou by this ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... life's sun would go down in a blaze of glory. But alas! it was not so to be. We who know his history know the dark shadow that came over his life. We know how its radiance faded away into the night. We shall do well to analyze the things that led to his downfall. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... with a full appreciation of his insolence, for the story of von Rittenheim's downfall and its cause was well known throughout ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... as if the entire city had determined to wreak vengeance upon us for all the misdeeds of the entire criminal bar. Even our old clients, and the police and court officers who had drawn pay from us, seemed to rejoice in our downfall. Every man's hand was against us. The hue and cry had been raised and we were to be harried out of town and into prison. At every turn we were forced to pay out large sums to secure the slightest assistance; our clerks and employees refused longer ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... rain came, public indignation at the King's action was raised almost to revolution pitch, and the King was frightened at once by the arrival of the promised downfall and the displeasure of his subjects. But he still held out, and it was only after concessions on the part of the Bridgeford committee, that he at last consented to the absorption of Sunchildism into the Musical Bank system, and to its establishment as the religion of the country. ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... the downfall of the tyrant. He escaped as you have just described. But the many whose lives he had ruined, whose nearest and dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let the matter rest. They banded themselves into a ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Judge could only suppose such a state of Civic imbecility was due to the decadence of the times in which they had the misfortune to live. It was the first indication that the downfall of London, like that of Rome, and—er—other cities he could not at the moment ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... colonization schemes and visions of an El Dorado to fill the eyes and ears of the credulous; and the History of the World, written to occupy his prison hours. The history is a wholly untrustworthy account of events from creation to the downfall of the Macedonian Empire. It is interesting chiefly for its style, which is simple and dignified, and for the flashes of wit and poetry that break into the fantastic combination of miracles, traditions, hearsay, and state records which he called history. In the conclusion ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... suspect that such news will be welcome tidings in this home?" cried Mrs. Stevens. "Ann Putnam, truly you must believe that I am unworthy to be called woman, if you think I can rejoice at the downfall of ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... white visitor to Niagara Falls was Father Hennepin, a priest and historian, accompanying Chevalier Robert de la Salle on his discoveries. He published the first description of "this wonderful Downfall" in 1678. ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... Clarendon Park was openly regretted by Lady Cecilia, while Lady Katrine secretly mourned over the downfall of her projects, and Beauclerc attempted not to disguise ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... Strange and unheard-of prodigies You would relate, but they are tost To me in letters by first Post. At which the Furioso swears Such chat as this offends his ears It rather doth become this Age To talk of bloodshed, fury, rage, And t' drink stout healths in brim-fill'd Nogans. To th' downfall of the Hogan Mogans. With that the Player doffs his Bonnet, And tunes his voice as if a Sonnet Were to be sung; then gently says, O what delight there is in Plays! Sure if we were but all in Peace, This noise ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... England, even in their wilderness home, were not exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the mother country after the downfall of Charles the First, and of the established Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were banished, on pain of death, from the Massachusetts Colony. One Samuel Gorton, a bold and eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a time in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... it will be remembered that this country has known no period of more intense and bitter party feeling than during the administration of the immediate successor of Washington, the period which witnessed the downfall of the Federal party, and the rise of the party of Jefferson. It was after the election but before the inauguration of John Adams, that the following words were spoken of President Washington by the brother-in-law of the little old lady to whom ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... chivalry. Therefore jealous people spoke evil of Sir Launcelot and the Queen, because they were of less prowess and honour than he, and thereby great mischief arose in Arthur's court. From this came Arthur's overthrow in the end, and the downfall of his ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... nonsense! The failure of a great financial company had brought about a crisis on the Bourse. The news of the inability of Wermant, the 'agent de change', to meet his engagements, had completed the downfall of M. de Nailles. Not only death, but ruin, had entered that house, where, a few hours before, luxury and opulence had seemed ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... girls are rejoicing in your sudden downfall,' said Captain Knox at length; 'I hear no moans now over your lost fortunes. It is the outside world that is pitying you. "Those poor girls," I hear on all sides, "after the very marked way in which old Miss Dane told everybody they ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... romance has been handed down in the history of our great families, relative to the terrible curses uttered in cases of dire extremity against persons considered guilty of injustice and wrong doing. It is to such fearful imprecations that the misfortune and downfall of certain houses have been attributed, although, it may be, centuries have elapsed before their final fulfilment. Such curses, too, unlike the fatal "Curse of Kehama," have rarely turned into blessings, nor have they been thought to be as harmless ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... first in fitful gusts that whistled under the eaves, sent the hay from the stacks flying through the yard, and lifted the ends of the roof shingles threateningly. It had gradually strengthened to a gale toward midday, and the steady downfall of flakes had been turned into a biting scourge that whipped up the soft cloak from the face of the open, treeless prairie and sent it lashing through the frigid air. Long before night had begun to settle down, no eye could penetrate the scudding snow a foot beyond the window ledges, except ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... the pain of my downfall," he said to the lad, "bring me that drawing; I am now taking my resignation to Ernest de la Briere myself, that it may not be altered or distorted while passing through the routine channels. I have my own reasons for wishing to see ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... solely from the standpoint which treats each side in the mass as the enemy of the other side in the mass is both wicked and foolish. In the past the most direful among the influences which have brought about the downfall of republics has ever been the growth of the class spirit, the growth of the spirit which tends to make a man subordinate the welfare of the public as a whole to the welfare of the particular class to which he belongs, the substitution of loyalty to a class for loyalty to the Nation. This inevitably ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... such novel circumstances, took on fresh meaning. Jane commenced speculating as to whether the downfall of Jack need necessarily have caused so complete a loss of self-control and equilibrium on the part of Jill. Would she not have proved her devotion better by bringing the mutual pail safely to the bottom ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... usual course. The downfall of Mavick is too well known in the Street to need explanation here. For a time it was hoped that sacrifices of great interests would leave a modest little fortune, but under the pressure of liquidation these hopes melted away. If anything could ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... A man ought so to avoid giving offense, as neither by wrong deed or word to be the occasion of anyone's downfall. "But if scandal arise from truth, the scandal should be borne rather than the truth be set aside," as Gregory says ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... Indians who foresaw the inevitable downfall of their race, he favored a gradual change of customs leading to complete adoption of the white man's ways. In order to accustom the people to a new standard, he held that the chiefs must have authority and must be given compensation for their services. This was a serious departure from the old ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... temples of Babylon and Borsippa, respectively, it is of course evident from the close connection between political development and religious supremacy, that Marduk's seat of worship occupies a unique position from the days of Hammurabi to the downfall of Babylonia. While the history of E-Sagila and E-Zida cannot be traced back further than the reign of Hammurabi, the temples themselves are considerably older. Previous to the rise of the city of Babylon as the political center, the Nabu cult in ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... root, and sin the flower. This is one of the reasons why we should never seek God merely with the intelligence: to do so is to seek Him, in part at least, with curiosity. God will not be peeped upon by a curious humanity. The indulgence in curiosity would of itself explain the whole downfall, so ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley

... of Frederick the Great, in 1786, to the death of William the First, in 1888, includes, in a convenient period to remember: the downfall of Frederick's patriotic edifice; the apathy and impotency that followed upon the breaking up of the bureaucracy he had welded into efficiency; the shuffling of the German states by Napoleon as though they were ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... echoed Henrietta, 'when he's buried like a delicate Sphinx up to his shoulders in the sands of your good opinion, and the mummy cloths of his own conceit; but just remove these, and you'll see a downfall. My dear FRANCESCA, this man is your CECCO, and he'd far better retire into a monastery than hope to win you. Why, I'd rather marry you myself, FRANCESCA! Such charms!' and Henrietta, with her own delicate perception and enjoyment of the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the rout was as fatal as it was sudden. The Christian reserve, just brought into the field, poured down upon them with a simultaneous charge. Boabdil, too much engaged to be the first to learn the downfall of the sacred insignia, suddenly saw himself almost alone, with his diminished Ethiopians and a handful ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that her abilities and services, which were eminent and various, secured Napoleon's advancement at every step of his rapid career from obscurity to the imperial throne; and that the loss of her influence and counsels was the necessary harbinger of his downfall. ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... all sensational excitement of every kind. When people are tearing their hair, and the welkin rings with such affrighting cries as Downfall and Crisis, the Archbishop's rather solemn and alarmed countenance breaks up into a genial smile. It is when people are immovable in otiose self-satisfaction, when the air is still and when lethargy creeps ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... civil war, which were given to the British Museum by his late majesty King George III. in 1762, there are three upon this subject. One is entitled, 'The Confession of Richard Brandon the Hangman (upon his death-bed), concerning his beheading his late Majesty. Printed in the year of the hangman's downfall, 1649.' The second is entitled, 'The last Will and Testament of Richard Brandon,' printed in the same year. The third is, 'A Dialogue or Dispute between the late Hangman (the same person), and Death,' in verse, without date. All three are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... volume, black, fiery, furious, awful—this comprised the second part of her history: it contained the overthrow of half the American people, and the downfall of the child princess Gabriella. An idea—how negative, nerveless, it looks printed! A little group of four ideas—how should they have power of life and death over millions of human beings! But say ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... discovered that the girls were there without the knowledge of their parents, some of them having literally climbed out of windows after their parents had supposed them asleep. A thorough investigation disclosed not only an enormous increase of business in the restricted districts, but the downfall of many young girls who had hitherto been thoroughly respectable and able to resist the ordinary temptations of city life, but who had completely lost their heads over the glitter of a military camp. One young girl ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams

... proclaim their destruction to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (26) The doom did not come to pass, because they repented of their wrong-doing, and God had mercy upon them. Among the Israelites Jonah was, therefore, known as "the false prophet." When he was sent to Nineveh to prophesy the downfall of the city, he reflected: "I know to a certainly that the heathen will do penance, the threatened punishment will not be executed, and among the heathen, too, I shall gain the reputation of being a false ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... the Tontine Coffee House sprang from dust, and through its doors walked Hamilton and Burr, Jerome Bonaparte, and a comic-pathetic emigre marquis, who in poverty awaited the greater Bonaparte's downfall, cherishing his order of Saint Louis and powdering his poll with Indian meal; the Livingstons and Clintons divided the land between them; Van Buren and the Regency came ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... is lifeless. A few meager facts are recorded, and there is a little tame comment, and that is all. There was a time when the political department of a French newspaper was its most brilliant feature. During the exciting times which presaged the downfall of Louis Philippe, and also during the early days of the republic, the Paris press was in the full tide of success, and was exceedingly brilliant. The daily journals abounded, and their subscription lists were enormous. Where there is freedom, men and women will read—and ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... With the fall of Assyria, a feeling of relief passed over the entire eastern world. A great danger, threatening to extinguish the independence of all of the then known nations of the globe, was averted. The Hebrew prophets living at the time of this downfall, voice the general rejoicing that ensued when they declared, that even the cedars of Lebanon leaped for joy. The province of Assyria proper, fell into the hands of the Medes, but Babylonia, with her independence established on a firm footing, was the real heir of ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... which enthroned wealth, elevated them to be commanding personages in trade, politics, orthodoxy and the highest social spheres. The cropped convict, released from prison, was followed everywhere by the jeers and branding of a society which gloated over his downfall and which forever reminded him of his infamy. But the men who waded on to wealth through the muck of base practices and by means of crimes a millionfold more insidious and dangerous than the offense of the convict, were not only honored as leading citizens, but they ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... the point of amazement—and, Bud suspected, secretly gratified as well. Wherefore Bud had deliberately done what he could do to stimulate and emphasize both the surprise and the gratification. Why is it that most human beings feel a sneaking satisfaction in the downfall of another? Especially another who is, or has been at sometime, a rival in love ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... pain, as if he had been wounded; his honour, his repute as a bold man, had suffered a downfall. Desperately he made his way to the door of the back room, and looked at the panting proprietress. She must have understood him, for she passed him a key and Valencia sneaked out. But soon the door of the back room opened and the bully stood there anew; ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... laid an icy hand upon me. I shook to my knees, listening. Why had he not denounced me, then? And in the same instant the answer came: He was to profit by my disgrace; he was to be aggrandized by my downfall. The drama he had prepared was to be set in scenery of his own choosing. His savant fingers grasped the tiller, steering ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... November 11, 1918, resulted directly from the military defeat of German armies in France, following upon the collapse of Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary. But there were many circumstances other than military that led to Germany's downfall, and by no means of least importance were the moral issues so constantly stressed by Wilson. His speeches had been carefully distributed through the Central Empires; they had done much to arouse the subject ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... and he became close friends till, the astonishment of their meeting over, diversity of character and ambition pushed them apart, and, with half the cavern helping, Henley began mixing the poisoned bowl for Wilde. Yet Henley never wholly lost that first admiration, for after Wilde's downfall he said to me: 'Why did he do it? I told my lads to attack him and yet we might ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats

... Susannah said to him defiantly. "There is no righteousness in desiring the downfall of your enemies, and earthly wealth can never have any ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall



Words linked to "Downfall" :   diamond dust, ice needle, ice crystal, snow mist, frost snow, failure, snowfall, fine spray, hail, virga, rain, frost mist, conditions, finish, rainfall, poudrin, sleet, weather, anticlimax, atmospheric condition, snow, weather condition, rise, weakening



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