"Tear up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... examination, considering the time you've lost. I let you off because I feel that the experiences you have gained may be of good value to you." Turning to the Adjutant he said, "March the prisoner out and release him. Tear up his crime sheet." ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... up and flinging out his hands). Oh, my God! The box-office! Have I got to slaughter my artistic instincts to feed the greed of a box-office? For God's sake, Peggy, take this play and write it to suit the taste of Broadway! Or shall I tear up the ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... And I perceived that the Humans had truly turned loose the Earth-Current upon the Hounds, that I be saved. And there went a constant great thundering over the Land, because that the Earth-Force did rend and split the air, and did tear up the earth. And the roaring of the Monsters did be husht and lost in that mighty sound; and I to see no place where the Hounds did be; but only flames and broken lands where the Earth-Force did strike; and great rocks did be hurled all whithers, with a vast noise; and truly it did be a mercy that ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... there was war, soldiers from the United States might come over and wreck the railway. They might dynamite the bridges or tear up the rails. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... good, Surajah," he said, when he returned. "There is no getting through there. There is nothing for it but the gate, unless we can find the steps up to the top of the wall, and get up unnoticed. Then we might tear up our sashes longways, knot them together, and ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... government is called tyranny and usurpation which is not formed on their fancies. In this manner the stirrers-up of this contention, not satisfied with distracting our dependencies and filling them with blood and slaughter, are corrupting our understandings: they are endeavoring to tear up, along with practical liberty, all the foundations of human society, all equity ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... inquisitor can no longer boast of "strained relations"—strained physically on the rack, owing to differences of religious opinion. The state of things which made it possible for sepoys to revolt because rifle bullets were greased with the fat of a sacred animal, or for yellow men to tear up railway tracks because the magic desecrated the tombs of their ancestors, is rapidly passing away, as Orientals realize the profits to ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... these heah parts was half men," said his wife, "I tell you whut they'd do. They'd git out and tear up every foot of this heah cussed railroad track, an' throw it back into the ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... make it seven thousand each," Skinski chortled. "You two guys put up your last dollar on me, and you didn't know whether I was an ace or a polish. I like you both, for you brought me good luck. Tear up the contract and take $7,000 apiece, is ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... going to put an end to this madness. It's not going to be easy. Just now, in the intoxication of the German collapse, we're all rejoicing in our new happiness. I tell you, the real Peace will be a long time coming. When you tear up all the fibres of civilization it's a slow job to knit things together again. You see those children going down the street to school? Peace lies in their hands. When they are taught in school that war is the most loathsome scourge ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... whose wrath was not immediately assuaged by the prospect of a visit from a famous man. "The madman pulled one of the nine oranges from the tree which was for Eugenie. Monster! So the point of our joke is gone, and Max may as well tear up his poem." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... brought peace 'cause de Yankees did not tear up de town. Dey had guards out around de houses an' dey marched back an' forth day an' night to keep everybody ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... possible; so she greeted Mrs. Perkins as one too busy with important affairs to tell details, and hurried into the house. Standing within the old hallway, she gazed about, startled. How on earth had Julia managed to tear up things in such a hurry? The pictures had all vanished from the walls. The books were gone from the old book-case; the furniture itself was being carried away, the marble-topped table being the last piece left. The woman was washing ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... how Solnhofen had treated his claim. In great wrath he swore to take vengeance on the man who had dared to tear up his complaint so contumeliously. His young wife implored him with tears in her eyes not to raise his hand against a servant of the Lord again. But he turned ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... Harvester. "I studied the location suitable to each variety before I set the beds and planned how to grow plants for continuity of bloom, and as much harmony of colour as possible. Of course a landscape gardener would tear up some of it, but seen as a whole it isn't so bad. Did you ever notice that in the open, with God's blue overhead and His green for a background, He can place purple and yellow, pink, magenta, red, and blue in masses or any combination you can mention and the brighter the colour the more you like it? ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four times ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of Hadrian it can take the northern colonists with it. The Jovians can bring in the people from the west, and the Batavians can escort the easterns if they will muster at Camboricum. You will see to it." He sank his face for a moment in his hands. "It is a fearsome thing," said he, "to tear up the roots of so goodly ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... away in that strenuous manner at my book, that I have had leisure for scarcely any letters but such, as I have been obliged to write; having a horrible temptation when I lay down my book-pen to run out on the breezy downs here, tear up the hills, slide down the same, and conduct myself in a frenzied manner, for the relief ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... McIntyre place. Lives wid dis grand-daughter dat been sick in bed for four weeks, but she mendin some now. She been mighty low, child. It start right in here (chest) en run down twixt her shoulder. She had a tear up cold too, but Dr. Dibble treat her en de cough better now. She got three chillun dere dat come just like steps. One bout like dat en another like dat en de other ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... At last a little sprig of feathery green catches the eye. It is a tuft of moss. No,—it is the running ground-pine; and clearing away, with both eager hands, leaves, sticks, moss, and all the fallen exuciae of the summertime, you tear up long wreaths of that most graceful of evergreens. Then, in another quarter of the woodland, where the underbrush has been killed by the denser shade, there rise the exquisite fan-shaped plumes of the feather-pine, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... he hurls round, his sharp paws Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about, Lashing his angry tail, and roaring out. Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear; Silence and horror fill the place around; Echo itself dares ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... fortune in this life! But to what purpose? Yet, 'sdeath, for a man to have the fruit of all his industry grow full and ripe, ready to drop into his mouth, and just when he holds out his hand to gather it, to have a sudden whirlwind come, tear up tree and all, and bear away the very root and foundation of his hopes:—what temper can contain? They talk of sending Maskwell to me; I never had more need of him. But what can he do? Imagination cannot form a fairer and more plausible design than this of his ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... with him. He thought perhaps the butty would let him go down with his Davy lamp. He would fill his pockets with bits of paper and drop them as he went along, so as to find his way back, and to know where he had been over before. He had got several old newspapers to tear up, and he would take a stick with him, and a basket of food, and a bottle of beer, and he would go into every nook and passage of the mine till he had found his friend. Dick's were brave thoughts. He fancied that he should have foes of all sorts to fight with, but for the sake of his friend ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... pressed upon her, and wanted to tear up the shirts of mail. Then eleven wild swans came flying up, and sat round about her on the cart, and beat with their wings; and the mob gave way ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... those two hours, the struggle against weakness, the moments of despair when memory refused to work, and simplest facts evaded her grasp! Nobody ever knew all that it meant, and as she had the presence of mind to tear up her blotting-paper, no examining eyes were shocked by the sight of the expedients to which a senior candidate had been reduced in order to discover the total of six multiplied by six, or eight plus ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... separation of the edges of the gills from the surface of the stem, to which they are closely applied before the pileus begins to expand. Threads of mycelium growing from the edge of the lamellae and from the stem intermingle. When the pileus expands these are torn asunder, or by their pull tear up the outer surface of the stem. The volva forms a prominent sheath which is usually quite soft and easily ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... leathern thongs, terminated at the one end by balls of lead; the other is wrapped round the hand of the executioner. In accordance with the Russian law, this instrument should weigh from five to six pounds. It strikes like a triple lash upon the naked back of the sufferer. It does not plough or tear up the flesh like the knout, but the skin of course breaks under the heavy blows inflicted upon the spinal column and the sides. Phthisis is a common complaint with those who have been subjected to the punishment ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... increase my efficiency. I take a hoe and reach out further and greatly add to my efficiency. I am the efficient agent. There is no power in the weeder or the hoe. I take my plow, as my tool, and I tear up the soil and prepare it for my harvest. I take the complicated harvester and gather it into my barn. In every part of that process the tool is but the reaching out of my energy beyond my body. There is no place where that tool becomes ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... inhabitants are forewarned that they must remain absolutely inactive and must not attempt in any way to take part in the battle. They must not attempt to attack either isolated German soldiers or detachments of the German army. It is hereby officially forbidden to construct barricades, or to tear up the streets in such a manner as to hamper the movements of our troops. In a word, it is forbidden to undertake any act whatsoever which might be in any manner a hindrance to the ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... forever. The fact was borne in on Annabel Jackson as she sat in her room one afternoon shortly before Commencement. It wasn't going to be such an easy thing to tear up root and leave Miss North's after four years as she had imagined. How was she ever going to get along without the girls? There was Sue—dear old, impulsive, warm-hearted Sue, companion in so many escapades. And Ruth, and Wee Watts—Blue Bonnet, too! The parting was going ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... a flower-vase, which had been sent in many pieces over the sward; at the second it had met with some stone coping; and at the third it had turned over in complete dissolution, and Jack was free to tear up the turf with his hoofs, until finally his erratic course was stopped by the small boy who was responsible for the animal's behaviour. The arrival of Hubert and Emily saved the small boy from many a cuff and the donkey from ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... had jabbed his face with her hat pin on that never-to-be-forgotten night. She would tell him that the lady of his love had gone up to Johannesburg weeks and weeks ago. Oh, but it would be sweet to see the duped lover's face! She would give him a bit of her mind, too—perhaps tear up the letter. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... way either to pleasure or to anger without a cause; and anger, by reaction, will follow pleasure, and pleasure anger. I do not excite the tigers' joy by giving them live creatures to kill, or whole carcasses to tear up. I neither rouse their anger by opposing them, nor humor them to make them pleased. I time their periods of hunger and anticipate them. It is my aim to be neither antagonistic nor compliant; so they look upon me as one of themselves. Hence they walk about the parks without ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... either Home Rulers, whether in Great Britain or in Ireland, who bona fide advocate the policy of Home Rule as a policy good and wise in itself and for its own sake; or else Unionists, who firmly believe that the whole State will suffer by any attempt to tear up the Treaty of Union, but yet are unable to give for the faith that is in them as strong grounds of reason as they would desire. To such persons the importance of the principle (if true) which is contended for throughout ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... o'clock at night. Driving our horses before us, we were compelled to slide down the steep and slippery rocks, or wade through deep gullies and ravines filled with mud and foaming torrents of water, that rushed downwards with such force as to carry along the loose rocks and tear up the trees and shrubbery by the roots. Many of the horses falling into the ravines refused to make an effort to extricate themselves, and were swept downwards and drowned. Others, bewildered by the fierceness and terrors ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... but I may fairly be entitled to say that I have advanced along the road on which he has travelled so many miles, and has effected such unexpected results that I do not hesitate to say that I may go home from this meeting and tear up my patent, for my process ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... to 1000. See Graves's discourse on the Roman foot. We are told that Maximin could drink in a day an amphora (or about seven gallons) of wine, and eat thirty or forty pounds of meat. He could move a loaded wagon, break a horse's leg with his fist, crumble stones in his hand, and tear up small trees by the roots. See his life in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... of Dione, and to all the gods, so to favour the work begun, and slew a shining bull on the shore to the high lord of [22-54]the heavenly people. Haply there lay a mound hard at hand, crowned with cornel thickets and bristling dense with shafts of myrtle. I drew near; and essaying to tear up the green wood from the soil, that I might cover the altar with leafy boughs, I see a portent ominous and wonderful to tell. For from the first tree whose roots are rent away and broken from the ground, drops of black blood trickle, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... faith," said the third. We are Calvinists, but I take no pleasure in throwing my pennies into Orange's maw, nor can it gratify me to again tear up the poles before the Cow-gate, ere the wind ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... object to hearing a man rave a little, Covington? If you do, you can tear up this right here. But I know I can't say anything good about Marjory that you won't agree with. Maybe, however, you'd call my present condition abnormal. Perhaps it is; but I wonder if it is n't part of every normal man's life to be abnormal to this extent at ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not going to cool down until I see the cause of it face to face, and if Billy thinks it makes the least difference to me how he amuses himself or with whom he spends his time sightseeing he thinks Wrong! I was going to tear up the letter I had written him in the middle of the night for the relief of indignations and because in the middle of the night things seem so much bigger and harder and stranger than in the daylight; but after I read the letter from Jess ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... and drink voraciously, force the closets, carry off linen and food, steal horses and valuables, smash the furniture, tear up books, and burn papers.[2431] All this is only the appropriate punishment of the aristocrats. Moreover, it is no more than right that patriots should be indemnified for their toil, and a few blows too many are not out of place in securing the rule of the right ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... unceremoniously as Dangloss rode forward. They found that he was one of the foremen in the employ of the railway construction company. He brought the disquieting news that another strike had been declared, that the men were ugly and determined to tear up the track already laid unless their demands were considered, and, furthermore, that there had been severe fighting between the two factions engaged on the work. He urgently implored Dangloss to send troops out to hold the rioters in check. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... shook very carefully. Then I bathed from head to foot in some villainous brandy that no respectable flea would or could endure; after this ablution was ended, I donned my garments, wrapped in my blanket, and proceeded to dream that I was a hen with thirteen chickens, and doomed to tear up an acre of ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... about it!" said Don Quixote. "I have now got to tear up my garments, to scatter about my armour, knock my head against these rocks, and more of the same sort of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... wanted to tell you the first day I saw you. You seemed the same kind of man my father was. My name's Louise. It was my mother made me do it. There was a mortgage—I was only sixteen. It's three years ago. He said to my mother he'd tear up the mortgage if I married him. That's why I'm here with him—Mrs. Mazarine. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tear up the letters of kind friends," she said. "I made a proposal which would have been in every way suitable to you girls, and you did not even trouble yourselves to read it. No, my loves, I am not angry. Daisy, come and give me a kiss; Jasmine, hold my hand. Now shall I tell you the ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... got another think comin'!" she retorted angrily. "I've a good mind to have you go over and tear up the whole place!" ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... still time for you to reconsider your action, and tear up this solitary record of it. If you choose to do so, say so, and I promise you that this interview, and all you have told us, shall never pass beyond these walls. No one will be the wiser for it, and we will give you full credit for having attempted something that was ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... asserted Ross, but without conviction. It was his custom to tear up to this house a dozen times a week, on his father's old horse or afoot; he was wont to yell for Champe as he approached, and quarrel joyously with her while he performed such errand as he had ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... about. At length they are again in line. Down goes the white flag! 'Good start!' shouts an excited planter. Down goes the red flag. 'Off at last!' breaks like a deep drawn sigh from the crowd, and now the six horses, all together, and at a rattling pace, tear up the hill, over the sand at the south corner, and up, till at the quarter mile post 'a blanket could ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... being particularly favorable by reason of your having set your miserable rudder to correspond with the present wind?" I asked. "Can't we tear up the woodwork and contrive ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... about plum paralyzed at that! Her story is as she just stood afore him with her mouth open like a Jack-o'-lantern's, wonderin' what under the sun she was goin' to be asked to remember next, an' when he said that was all, an' for her just to simply tear up the paper, she forgot all about Luther Stott's wife on the back an' tore up the paper. He said for her to go right along to town fully an' freely relyin' on 'Two legs sat upon three legs' to get her her shoes, an' she says what with bein' so dumbfoundered, ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... an imbecile way of talking. I dare say I shall tear up my letter in the morning. No, I shall not. It belongs to you, for it is just what your loving old Dorry ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... rush, and you are overwhelmed with protestations, promises, and kisses! They are irresistible, too, these little ones. They pull away the scholar's pen, tumble about his paper, make somersets over his books; and what can he do? They tear up newspapers, litter the carpets, break, pull, and upset, and then jabber unheard-of English in self-defence; and what ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you to your own workings; but if I find your prudence unrewarded by the wretch, the storm you saw raised at the Hall, shall be nothing to the hurricane I will excite, to tear up by the roots all the happiness the two wretches ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the stone-mason, with blanched face and set jaw, facing and quelling a body of strikers threatening to tear up the tracks along the Chicago River, as brave as Horatius at the bridge across the Tiber. There is a vivid picture of democracy's greatest problem in that valley. Then I see him flinging almost in a day a new bridge across the Tiber. There is a companion ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... broad bladed knife in his right is inserted with a carefully calculated thrust underneath the border and edging. There is not much difficulty; sometimes the violin is turned in a contrary direction when there is a disposition for the grain to tear up ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... lingering day, And let the night, thy sister, come instead, And drape the world in mourning; let the owl, Who is thy minister, scream from his tower And wake the toad with hooting, and the bat, That is the slave of dim Persephone, Wheel through the sombre air on wandering wing! Tear up the shrieking mandrakes from the earth And bid them make us music, and tell the mole To dig deep down thy cold and narrow bed, For I shall lie within ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... order of little Joe Calvin's—why, he might as well post a trespass notice against snowslides as against this forward moving cause of labor." His voice rose, "I'm here to tell you that under your rights as citizens of this Republic, and under your rights in the coming Democracy of Labor, I bid you tear up these martial law proclamations to kindle ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... of affairs and an autocrat, I am at the same time bound to accept these contracts made in London, and am therefore powerless to improve your unfortunate acceptances of these posts assigned to you. However, if you will agree to tear up these contracts I shall engage you weekly all the same, but at double salaries. Do you agree ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... I'd better stay here and camp at the hotel, hadn't I, so's to be handy when your lawyer comes on? Emperor might tear up the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... had you with me to make fun out of some of the bonnets. The house is very comfortable; but it always seems to me unpleasantly like some philanthropic institution in miniature. I long to scratch the walls, or break the windows; and I begin to understand the feelings of those unhappy paupers who tear up their clothes: they get utterly tired of their stagnation, you see, and must do something wicked and rebellious rather than do nothing at all. You will take pity upon my forlorn state, won't you, Di? I shall come to Hyde Lodge to-morrow afternoon with ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... and falls and goes the wrong way many times before it learns the way of life. There came days after that summer night of 1904, when John Barclay fell—days when he would sneak into the stenographers' room in his office in the City and tear up some letter he had dictated, when he would send a telegram annulling an order, when he would find himself cheating and gouging his competitors or his business associates,—even days when he had not the moral courage to retrace his steps although he knew he was wrong. Shame put her brand ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... dragoons could only pass by stooping, they reached at length a kind of guard-room which through two holes pierced in the wall received some light—at this time but feebly dispensed by the moon. This room, it was clear, lay near to the sea-shore; for the wind without seemed as if it would tear up the very foundations of the walls. The old man searched anxiously in his bundle of keys, and at length applied an old rusty key to the door-lock. Not without visible signs of anxiety he then proceeded to unlatch the door. But scarce had he half performed ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... "Tear up the carpet and see what is the matter with this part of the floor. Perhaps we shall find not only that, but something else of a still more ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... captured. This brilliant attack was made by Colonial volunteers, led by Sir Archibald Hunter, and was entirely successful. The next morning there was a further attempt by the cavalry to cut the telegraph wires and tear up the railway which brought the Boers' supplies. This, however, was not so successful. The Boers were ready for our men, and they suffered severely. Then came ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... persistence in the wrong path of progress, grows weaker and worse, as do all such weak things. And by the time in which I write its moral attitude has taken on something of the sinister and even the horrible. Our mistakes have become our secrets. Editors and journalists tear up with a guilty air all that reminds them of the party promises unfulfilled, or the party ideals reproaching them. It is true of our statesmen (much more than of our bishops, of whom Mr. Wells said it), that socially ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... Doctor Bridges rather thinks there is nothing very much the matter with him," she remarked crisply. "I am sorry I troubled you in any way, Mr. Packard. You say you arranged matters with dad? Well, I want you to tear up the papers; I'll see that your money is ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... man's God is better than the red man's," remarked Hobomok privately to Wanalancet, who was visiting Plymouth. "When our powahs pray for rain, and cut themselves, and offer sacrifice, it comes sometimes, but in noisy floods that tear up the earth, and beat down the maize, and do more harm than good. Wanalancet better ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... mock at them for ten whole years, without finding out at last that these things swell into avalanches, and those avalanches will fall and crush and bury my lords the nobles. You want to go back to the old order of things. You want to tear up the social compact, the Charter in which ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the office, young Ingham and Davidson would go over them and edit them and bring them up to standard—that's the way those brilliant young fellows made all the money that they are spending on chorus girls and actresses to-day. They would have these shop records recopied, but they did not always tear up the old ones, and somebody in the office hid them, and that was how the Government got ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... blusterer, that is to say, loving nothing so much as a quarrel, unless it were an uprising; and nothing so much as an uprising, unless it were a revolution; always ready to smash a window-pane, then to tear up the pavement, then to demolish a government, just to see the effect of it; a student in his eleventh year. He had nosed about the law, but did not practise it. He had taken for his device: "Never a lawyer," and for his armorial bearings a nightstand ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... do they?" he said, staring up at the mountain tops. "They come down here and tear up things, do they? Well, I think we'll stop that, I think we'll stop that! I don't care how many there are. I'll get the two Bradleys to tell me all they know about drilling, to-morrow morning, and we'll drill these Opekians, and ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... telegrams announcing this intention, and given orders to pack up the stores for the passage down the Nile, when the receipt of a long letter full of praise and encouragement from the Khedive Ismail induced him to alter his plans, to tear up the telegrams, and to continue his work. General Gordon gives his reason for changing his mind very briefly: "The man had gone to all this expense under the belief that I would stick to him; I could not therefore leave him." So he stayed ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of the wildest confusion. Clouds of dust rise from the dry plain, trampled on by the hoofs of numberless animals. The bulls, driven to fury, tear up the earth, and with deep, savage bellowings rush at their fellows as well as at their foes, unable to distinguish one from the other—often piercing the former with their sharp horns. The uproar is increased by the yells and shouts of the Llaneros galloping ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... you wouldn't speak as if I were a band of travelling bagmen. I'm not piping or tuning in any way. I say now precisely what I've said all along. Rouse these people to their responsibilities, and you can tear up your factory laws! Different ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... duchies question and that of federal reform. Thiers had warned him in vain, in an admirable speech delivered on May 3d, that France had everything to lose by aiding in bringing about the unity of Germany. The emperor obstinately persisted, proposing to tear up those treaties of 1815 which, two years before, he had childishly declared to be no longer in existence. His proposition of a congress, however, failed through the refusal of Austria and the petty states to take part in it. He next signed with Austria a secret treaty by which the ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... strength of a single animal. I have seen trees between two and three feet in diameter that have been felled for the sake of the roots and tender heads; these have shown unmistakable signs of an attack by several elephants, as the ground has been ploughed by tusks of different sizes to tear up the long straggling roots which were near the surface, and the deep marks of feet around the centre of operations, of various diameters, have proved the co-operation of ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... let ourselves down to the moat by means of a rope. The latter portion of this scheme being manifestly the more likely, we decided to secure our rope first. This was easier said than done. Our coverlets were of such thin and rotten material, we should need to tear up several of them before, even carefully knotted, they would serve our purpose, and we could not risk the detection that would surely follow if any of them were missed by our guards. When I went next to take my turn at drawing water from the well I carefully ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... go to wrack and ruin; go by the board, go all to smash; be all over, be all up, be all with; totter to its fall. destroy; do away with, make away with; nullify; annual &c. 756; sacrifice, demolish; tear up; overturn, overthrow, overwhelm; upset, subvert, put an end to; seal the doom of, do in, do for, dish*, undo; break up, cut up; break down, cut down, pull down, mow down, blow down, beat down; suppress, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... And, if there be— Tear up its roots with zealous care, With deep soul-probing and with prayer, Lest, in the coming years, Again it bear This same dread fruit of blood and tears, And ruth ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... me alone," went on the druggist "let me alone, hang it! My word! One might as well set up for a grocer. That's it! go it! respect nothing! break, smash, let loose the leeches, burn the mallow-paste, pickle the gherkins in the window jars, tear up ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... on the prairies So let us stand in a ring, Let us tear up their prisons like grass And beat them to barricades— Let us meet the fire of their guns With a greater fire, Till the birds shall fly to the ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... incantations, to Mazin unintelligible; when suddenly appeared a genie, in stature forty cubits; he was one of the subdued spirits of our lord Solomon. He muttered and growled, saying, "For what, my lord, hast thou summoned me here? shall I tear up this eminence by the roots, and hurl it beyond the mountains ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... sovereignty to perish! May they pluck out the stability of the throne of his empire! Let not his offspring survive him in the kingdom! Let his servants be broken! Let his troops be defeated! Let him fly vanquished before his enemies! May Vul in his fury tear up the produce of his land! May a scarcity of food and of the necessaries of life afflict his country! For one day may he not be called happy! May his name ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... for the unhappy state of affairs between you! I write sarcastically. Why, it would be monstrous if you had any other intention! Oh, how I hate this pedantic roundabout way of writing! I feel inclined to tear up these sheets—I've torn up two already. Really, you've made it so difficult for me to treat you naturally. If I could talk to you, I'd make you understand in five ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... "Don't tear up my letter in a rage; I am not going to argue the question with you any further. Certain criminal circumstances have come to my knowledge, which point straight to this woman. I shall plainly relate those circumstances, out of my true regard for you, in the ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... dead? And I never knew! [With an effusion of tenderness] And you here being treated like that, poor orphan, with nobody to take your part! Tear up that foolish paper, child; and sit down and make friends ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... sort, he decides to approach directly, trusting to his own presence to get past the girl at the front door and whomsoever else stands between him and the man he wants to see. He does not write, because he knows that the man would tear up the letter and he does not telephone, because he knows that the man would not promise to see him and that if he were to call after such a telephone conversation his chances for success would ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... have blown off some of the rage I feel against you for the cruelty you used to my devotion, and have taught you to see that, while you may be divine, I am not made of water, I bid you tear up this letter, for I have done the like, and do not forget that I am one to whose epistles kings and ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... seed awaits the coming of the commissary to nourish while it consumes that vitality in the fascia of the glands to develop the portly child we call mumps. Both male and female conceive and give birth to such beings, then tear up the tracks and roads behind them, by killing the ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... your own proposition. I didn't suggest buying you out. You came to me to sell. If you don't want to let it go at the price we've agreed on I'll tear up this bill ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... only relief consists in going over and over again in my mind the tale of my miseries. This time I will write it, writing only to tear up, to throw the manuscript unread into the fire. And yet, who knows? As the last charred pages shall crackle and slowly sink into the red embers, perhaps the spell may be broken, and I may possess once more my long-lost liberty, my ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... is an insult? I should think little indeed of any one who could not forgive them by the score. But to leave one's friends; to tear up the bonds ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is to be plastic under the fingers of chance; the faintest breath of dubiety can sway them. I had been in so many minds about this thirty pound bet, which I could not really afford, that there was therefore nothing for it, after waiting the two minutes that seemed to be ten, but to tear up the message, in the belief that the friendly gods again had intervened. For luck is as much an affair of refraining as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... bowsprit, coamings of the hatchways, strakes and stanchions for the decks. If all these woods are cut at the conjunction and decrease of the moon, and seasoned, as above stated, for one year, the ship will last much longer; for if they are cut and not seasoned, one must tear up the decks every two years and put down new ones, for they are rotten. Likewise the planks along the sides must be changed, with the exception of the futtock-timbers and top-timbers made of the wood maria; for that wood, although cut and not seasoned, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... that come around robbing got into our neighborhood and old Master told me I better not have my old horse at the house, 'cause if I had him they would know nobody had been there stealing and it wouldn't do no good to hide anything 'cause they would tear up the place hunting what I had and maybe whip or ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... you haven't. Then what you must do is tear up your sheets and let yourself down into the garden. Hacking will whistle three times if all's clear, and then you must climb over into his garden and run as hard as you can to the corner of the road where I'll be waiting for you in a cab. I'll go up to London with you and ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... before the governments of states as setting a model for a wise, prudent, considerate, even benevolent, administration of occupied enemy territory. In days when Powers driven mad by military ambition tear up treaties as scraps of paper, General Allenby observed the spirit as well as the letter of the Hague Convention, and found it possible to apply to occupied territory the principles of administration as laid down in the Manual of ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... these Students are not apprehended. When I dwelt at my Country house, there came a parcel of these drunken blades, that were expresly gone abroad to play some mad tricks; they pulled down the pales of my neighbors Garden; and one among them that served for Chief, commanded pull off these planks, tear up ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... my words in thy mouth; See, I have set thee this day over the nations and kingdoms, To tear up, to break down and to destroy, to ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... desired to be united to Piedmont, and a war of liberation would be the signal of the reawakening of all the old jealousies, while republicans, dreamers, pretenders, seekers of revenge, power, riches, would tear up Italy between them. In the House of Lords, Lord Derby declared that the Austrian was the best of good governments, and only sought to improve its Italian provinces. Cavour concealed the irritation which he strongly ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... before, to find themselves as far off as ever from their aim. But the wolverene was not to be balked so easily. His cunning nose found the minute openings of the air-holes; and by digging his claws into these little apertures he was able to put forth his great strength and tear up some tiny ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... danger, m., danger, peril. dans, in, into, to. de, of, from, by, with, in, on, among. dbris, m., wreck, ,ruins. dceler, to betray. dchirer, to tear up. dclamer, to declaim, speak. dclarer, to declare. dcouvrir, to disclose, reveal. ddaigner, to spurn. ddain, m., disdain. ddans, au —, within. ddier, to dedicate. dfendre, to defend, forbid. dfense, f., defence, protection. degr, m., step (in ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... this church our grandmothers met. Here in this church, my brethering, we have met. And let me say to you, my dear people, that we have met here tonight in this church for a purpose. There are certain people in this community whose aim is to tear up this church; certain people, I say, whose aim is to tear down this church. There is a certain doctring—the doctring of holiness—getting into this community. This holiness doctring, my friends, is a devilish doctring, my brethering, ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... only one thing to do, boys. We'll clean out everything there is in the cabin, and to-morrow we'll tear up the floor. You can't tell what there might be under it, and we've got to have a new floor anyway. It is getting dusk, and if we have this place fit to sleep in to-night we have ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... carries a fall-sown crop, early spring cultivation is doubly important. As soon as the plants are well up in spring the land should be gone over thoroughly several times if necessary, with an iron tooth harrow, the teeth of which are set to slant backward in order not to tear up the plants. The loose earth mulch thus formed is very effective in conserving moisture; and the few plants torn up are more than paid for by the increased water supply for the remaining plants. The wise dry-fanner ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... old stormer has another way of making mischief. After he has got the valleys and streams covered and filled with ice and snow, he brings on a tempest of wind and rain, and fills the land with torrents, which raise the streams, and tear up the ice, and carry it down in vast, broken, and jamming blocks, which break down the bridges, and carry away dams, and spread all over the meadows, frightening a good many families out of their beds ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... again he tried to tear up from his inner consciousness something which he could remember, closing his eyes and sinking his head upon his hands, but nothing except fragments and glimpses of vision rose before him. It was now a face or a scene to which he could give no name; now a sentence ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... Ogilvy giving his Lauchlan a push that nearly sent him sprawling, said in an ecstasy to himself, "He had to think of it till he got it—and he got it. The laddie is a genius!" They were about to tear up Tommy's essay, but he snatched it from them and put it in his oxter pocket. "I am a collector of curiosities," he explained, "and this paper may be worth ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... in Capetown is the misfortune, not the fault, of the inhabitants in being frequently exposed to the full fury of the south-east wind. Sometimes for whole days together the Cape is swept by tremendous blasts, which tear up the sea into white foam and raise clouds of blinding dust along ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... early misfortunes have been amply retrieved? I am aware that this is very simple advice, and that it appears like a string of platitudes, but it is extremely sound and yet it is ignored on every medal day. Never, never tear up your card, for golf is indeed a funny game, and no man knows what is going to happen when it is being played. There are numberless historic instances to support this counsel, but I will quote only one which came under my personal observation recently, and which ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... textually from Fitz-Maurice, blamed Lord Lexington, whose agent and interpreter he had been from the beginning of the war, for having committed the Queen of England so far to Madame des Ursins, and advised him to tear up the convention.[63] By the intervention of that lady, England had obtained all it required, and the written consent of Philip V. rendered the concessions irrevocable; there was no danger, therefore, of want of good faith on the ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All, save I, were at rest or in enjoyment; I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... allowed to tear up my letter, but this they would by no means allow. On the contrary, I was compelled to address it and stamp it then and there, and place it in the post-box in the hall. Then, with compliments and good wishes, I was dismissed to bed, and left ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... this, one reads with a shudder the sickening details of the African huntsman approaching behind the retiring animal, and of the torture inflicted by the shower of bullets which tear up its flesh and lacerate its flank ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... she said, "you must not say that; but though I am an old horse, and have seen and heard a great deal, I never yet could make out why men are so fond of this sport; they often hurt themselves, often spoil good horses, and tear up the fields, and all for a hare, or a fox, or a stag, that they could get more easily some other way; but we are ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... nice research with which he could bring it to bear upon the most minute objects of investigation. I forget of whom it was said, that his mind resembled the trunk of an elephant, which can pick up straws and tear up trees by the roots. Mr. Watt in some sort resembled the greatest and most celebrated of his own inventions; of which we are at a loss whether most to wonder at the power of grappling with the mightiest objects, or ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... other vessels to be seen, previous to his pouncing on his quarry. The Portuguese captain went aft and hoisted his ensign, but no flag was shown by the schooner. Again whistled the ball, and again did it tear up the decks of the unfortunate ship: many of those who had re-ascended to ascertain what was going on, now ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... to the fireplace mechanically. His impulse was to tear up and burn Violet's letter and thus utterly destroy all proof and the record of her shame. He was restrained by that strong subconscious sanity which before now had cared for him when he was at his worst. It suggested that ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... the hollow window-bench, and was continuing the statement of his wrongs. 'If he only knew what he was sitting upon,' she thought apprehensively, 'how easily he could tear up the flap, lock and all, with his strong arm, and seize upon poor Uncle Benjy's possessions!' But he did not appear to know, unless he were acting, which was just possible. After a while he rose, and going to the table lifted the candle to light his pipe. At the moment when the flame ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... might go, it could flash the news of their exploit a thousand-fold faster. The flight of the lightning news-bearer must be stopped. The train was halted a mile or two from the town, the pole climbed, the wire cut. Danger from this source was at an end. Halting long enough to tear up the rail to whose absence Conductor Fuller owed his somersault, they sprang to their places again and the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and dignity from the Holy See." This meant, according to Innocent, that the pope has the right to interfere in all secular matters and in the quarrels of rulers. "God," he continued, "has set the Prince of the Apostles over kings and kingdoms, with a mission to tear up, plant, destroy, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... don't tear up these last few pages, people will think I'm silly. I'm willing so long as they believe me honest. Of course, in a way, such details are no one's business but if I couldn't give Ruth the credit which is her due ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... thought," said the mate. "It will take a long time to tear up enough of the old brig, and to get the material down to the shore, but we shall all work with a will. I thought that we might make a hut under the cocoa-nut trees just opposite one of the openings in the reef, and as you agree that it's a good plan, I propose beginning ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... they were! there they were!" He threw open the door of the seventh pen, and sent out his most powerful spirits to search for the fugitives. "Bring them me just as you find them, for I must have them, dead or alive. Tear up the accursed rose-tree by the roots, and bring everything else with you that looks strange." And the spirits rushed forth like ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... that mind and character alone were the qualifications by which men and women were to be weighed in the social balance. If, therefore, the young ladies talked or showed inattention during their lessons, he became furious, and would tear up the music and scatter it over the floor. His rage, indeed, seems to have been quite ungovernable at times. On one occasion he was playing a duet with his pupil Ries when his ear caught some fragments of a conversation which a young nobleman was carrying on with a lady at the further end of the ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... or partly upset it. Christy thought it was time for him to take a hand in the game, and he ordered the midship gun to be fired, charged as it was with a solid shot. The gunner aimed the piece himself, and the shot was seen to tear up the water alongside of the enemy. He discharged the piece four times more with no better result. Evidently he had not got the hang of the gun, though he was improving at ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... fight, you fools! Tear up the earth with strife And spill each others guts upon the field; Serve unto death the men you served in life So that their wide dominions ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... did not intend to destroy the city. I was only trying to tear up the factory that builds these battleships; I only wanted to destroy their machines. I had no conception of the power of that ray. I was as horrified to see the city disappear as you were; I only wanted to protect my people." Torlos smiled bitterly. "I have lived ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... offshoots overseas, was unshared by his countrymen, still aloof, still suspicious, and daily impressed by the spectacle of those who most paraded allegiance to British Imperialism professing a readiness to tear up the Constitution rather than allow freedom to Ireland. Liberal statesmen did not understand that Redmond could only justify to Ireland the part which he was taking if he won, and that he and not they must be the judge of what Ireland would consider a defeat. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... the Annexation of 1877. Be it so; but in that view discussion is useless. Mr. Krueger held them as null and void. He has chosen his own time to declare war. A government has always the right to tear up a treaty just as a private individual has the right to refuse implement of a contract. In the case of the individual, his refusal exposes him to a claim of damages; in the case of a country, the result is war. It is the simplest thing in the world; but then why go seeking ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot |
