"Undone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we think the conduct of the Regicides blameable, that of Milton appears to us in a very different light. The deed was done. It could not be undone. The evil was incurred; and the object was to render it as small as possible. We censure the chiefs of the army for not yielding to the popular opinion; but we cannot censure Milton for wishing to change that opinion. The very feeling which would have restrained us from committing the act would ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the centuries of the first class. But our fields were uncultivated, while we were shedding our best blood for the state; and to complete the ruin, my rural slaves broke loose, and joined Spartacus the gladiator. Taken, they died upon the cross; and I was quite undone. Law suits and usury ate up the rest; and, for these eight years past, old Bassus has been penniless, and often cold, and always hungry. But if this had been all, it is a soldier's part to bear cold and hunger—but not to bear disgrace. Man, there have been gyves on these legs—the whip has ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... her maid's body, can it be wondered at if the children inherit cruel natures? How often have I seen a poor horse fall between the shafts of some loaded cart of bricks or sand! Never once have I seen his harness undone and willing hands help him up, as in other civilized lands. No, the lashing of the cruel whip or the knife's point is his only help. If, as some religious writers have said, the horse will be a sharer of Paradise along with man, his master, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... that I was not to think of the idiot's conscientiousness," he muttered, "then all might have been arranged even yet; but now he knows all, and I am undone." ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... the Rue de Clery. Then they took the Rue du Mail. On reaching the Place des Victoires, there was a halt. The bride's left shoe lace had come undone, and as she tied it up again at the foot of the statue of Louis XIV., the couples pressed behind her waiting, and joking about the bit of calf of her leg that she displayed. At length, after passing down the Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... as he stepped forward towards the couch, with Wingate a yard or two in front of him, for the first time recognised the two men who sat at the table, looking at him so strangely. Rees' hands were in his pockets, his tie had come undone, his hair was ruffled. He had all the appearance of a man recovering from a wild debauch. Phipps' waistcoat was unbuttoned, and his eyes, in the gathering ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... referred to in the dialogue between the two robbers; and that they recognise it as such is evident by their action. Soon as sighting it, they head straight towards its stem, and halting, slip down out of their saddles, having undone the cords by which the captives were attached ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... beg your pardon," said Margaret, not as superior to inferior, nor yet with the much-vaunted "just as if they were equals," but simply as one human being to another. The maid sat up. One of her braids had come undone and was hanging ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Venus, deathless Aphrodite, cannot, goddess though she is," he complained. "The fact is, I 'm feeling rather undone. I think I will ask you to bring me a bottle of Asti-spumante—some of the dry kind, with the white seal. I 'll try to pretend that it's champagne. To tell or not ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity and impurity belong to oneself, ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... Del Campo. The time when our bills would be due was drawing very nigh. My expectations of aid from France were at best uncertain, and every consideration urged me not to leave anything in my power undone here, to avoid the catastrophe I had so much reason to apprehend. I therefore concluded to wait on the Minister, and in a plain and pointed manner enter into a detail of the reasons given us to expect supplies from this Court, and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... And thymy sheep-paths where the ploughboy plods Home to his frugal but sufficient tea. Not for a crown, grim coal, would I pursue thee In subterranean passages and hew thee Mid poisonous fumes and draughts of tepid tea. Yet were I all undone should I eschew thee; Someone, in short, must dig thee up for me; And, if he deems it worth a pound a day, Well, who am I to say ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... checked himself in sheer humanity. Again the boy could confirm the outward detail out of his own recollection. To have told him later in the morning, the doctor went on to say, with an emphasis not immediately understood, could have undone nothing. He acknowledged a grave responsibility, but rightly or wrongly he had put the living before ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... (not Killer, as usually erroneously written and pronounced.—See my essay on the true history of this worthy, where real facts have in a peculiar degree been obscured by fable.) In short, all in the village were under the necessity of doing something which they would rather have left undone, excepting Captain Doolittle, who walked every morning in the open street, which formed the high mall of our village, in a blue coat with a red neck, and played at whist the whole evening, when he could ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... and he desired me to get you, if I could, to join him in it. I said I would, if it was right an' honest; for I have great doubts of it bein' either the one or the other, if it comes from him. He said that it was both; but that it 'ud be a great piece of roguery to have it undone. Now, if it is what he says it is, help him in it, if you can; but if it isn't, have no hand in it. That's all I tould him I would say, an' that's all I do say. Keep out of his saicrets I advise you; an', above all things, avoid everything mane an' dishonest; ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... turn the flock; And, to his office prematurely called, There stood the urchin, as you will divine, Something between a hindrance and a help; And for this cause not always, I believe, 190 Receiving from his Father hire of praise; Though nought was left undone which staff, or voice, Or looks, or threatening gestures, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... complaints against Mr. Hastings, to make them under the authority of an act of Parliament, under every sanction of public faith, yet, in consequence of those charges, every person concerned in them has been, as your Lordships will see, since his restoration to power, absolutely undone, brought from the highest situation to the lowest misery, so that they may have good reason to repent they ever trusted an English Council, that they ever trusted a Court of Directors, that they ever trusted an English act of Parliament, that they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... from the brute who would have made her wretched for the rest of her life; and surely the good God, who could read the secret motives which lay in a fellow's heart, would not be hard on Andor for what he had done—or left undone—for Elsa's sake. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... mirth-loving souls, Has lock'd up his lightning, his daggers, and bowls. Resolv'd that in buskins no hero shall stalk, He has shut us quite out of the Tragedy walk. No blood, no blank verse!—and in short we're undone, Unless you're contented with Frolic and Fun. If tired of her round in the Ranelagh-mill, There should be but one female inclined to sit still; If blind to the beauties, or sick of the squall, A party should shun to catch ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... Dog Show at this moment. To-night the Chancellor is taking them to moving pictures. And to-morrow—it is a State secret, my dear, but it will be very generally known in the morning—we have seats for them all at the circus. If we can hold them together all is well, but if they split we are undone. Meantime our difficulties increase. At the very passage of the Bill itself a question was asked by one of the new labour members, a miner, my dear, a quite ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... a thing or leave it undone, solely in order to please men, we call "ambition," especially when we so eagerly endeavour to please the vulgar, that we do or omit certain things to our own or another's hurt: in other cases it is generally called ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... in boundless hospitality and generosity, and so many had had a share in his goods that they could never be recovered nor could it be said of any man that he was the cause of Buicad's undoing. But undone he was at last, and when there remained to him but one bull and seven cows he departed by night with his wife and Ethne from Dun Buicad, leaving his mansion desolate. And he travelled till he came to a place where there was a grove of oak trees by a little stream in the county ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... news that my lord great-master and master Denny was arrived at the gate, the cofferer went hastily to his chamber, and said to my lady his wife, 'I would I had never been born, for I am undone,' and wrung his hands, and cast away his chain from his neck, and his rings from his fingers. This is confessed by his own servant, and there is ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... little wrong. The shrinking from needless and violent change which is so strongly characteristic of William, and less strongly of Lanfranc also, made their work at the time easier to be done; in the course of ages it made it easier to be undone. ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... himself as having shaken it hard, flapped it with a mighty flutter, straight in front of his companion's nose. It gave him really almost the sense of having already acted his part. The momentary relief—as if from the knowledge that nothing of THAT at least could be undone—sprang from a particular cause, the cause that had flashed into operation, in Miss Gostrey's box, with direct apprehension, with amazed recognition, and that had been concerned since then in every throb of his consciousness. What it came to was that with an absolutely new ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... "it has turned out as the saw says, 'but a short while is hand fain of blow'; and yet it is one and the same man in thy band who now hangs his head, and who then goaded thee on to the worst of deeds when it was still undone. But my help I am bound to lend thee in all such places ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... to find it," returned Mr. Dinneford, "and then do what Christian charity demands. I am in earnest so far, and will leave nothing undone, you may rest assured. The police have the mayor's instructions to find the baby and give it into my care, and I do not think we shall have long ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... church has been sadly misdirected; that she has often put the emphasis in the wrong place; that while she has been doing many things that were worth doing she has largely left undone the main thing she was sent to do, was made plain by our study in the last chapter. And there can be no doubt that this misdirection of her energies, and this failure to exercise her strength in ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... what has been done or left undone by Mohamadans in this country can be found than Mohamad bin Saleh, for he is very intelligent, and takes an interest in all that happens, and his father was equally interested in this country's affairs. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... Antoinette on quitting Versailles was that "they were undone; they were being dragged off, perhaps to death, which was never far removed from captive sovereigns;[1]" and such henceforward was her prevailing feeling. She may occasionally, prompted by her own innate ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Western World and have there become a race happier, at any rate in all the circumstances of their life, than their still untamed kinsmen in Africa, must also be acknowledged. Who, then, can dare to wish that all that has been done by the negro immigration should have remained undone? ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... and acquired experience, Grouvelle unites impudence and immorality; and those on whom he fixes for his prey are, therefore, easily duped, and irremediably undone. He has furnished disciples to all factions, and to all sects, assassins to the revolutionary tribunals, as well as victims for the revolutionary guillotine; sans-culottes to Robespierre, Septembrizers to Marat, republicans ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... sight she went distracted, and lamented pitifully: "Oh, oh! I am undone," and fell on the ground and wept. Then she took her lover down from the tree and made him sit up, though he was dead, and adorned him with perfumes and ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... of character had a fascination for him, and although she snubbed him to the verge of madness, he could never keep his eyes away from her. The force with which she tied her shoe when the lacing came undone, the flirt over shoulder she gave her black braid when she was excited or warm, her manner of studying,—book on desk, arms folded, eyes fixed on the opposite wall,—all had an abiding charm for Seesaw Simpson. When, having obtained permission, she walked to the water pail in the corner and ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... only one vote from south of Mason and Dixon's Line. A large majority favored the resolution, but not the required two-thirds majority. Brooks, however, thought best to resign but was triumphantly returned to his seat with only six votes against him. Nothing was left undone to express Southern gratitude, and he received gifts of canes innumerable as symbols of his valor. Yet before his death, which occurred in the following January, he confessed to his friend Orr that he was sick of being regarded as the representative of bullies and disgusted ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... of the raid was undoubtedly due to the excellent patrolling which had been done by Martelli and his Scouts, L.-Corpl. Hickman, and Pvtes. Bambrook and Haslam, who throughout worked with the greatest skill, and left nothing undone to ensure that all was in order. Many gallant deeds too, were performed in the enemy trenches. Pvte. Chappel, a leading bayonet man successfully shewed one Boche the proper way of making the point; ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... history, and examine what in fact has been the conduct of the Bank directors, we find that they have acted exactly as persons of their type, character, and position might have been expected to act. They are a board of plain, sensible, prosperous English merchants; and they have both done and left undone what such a board might have been expected to do and not to do. Nobody could expect great attainments in economical science from such a board; laborious study is for the most part foreign to the habits of English merchants. Nor could we expect ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... you to be patient, Mr. Harley. Time is a wonderful doctor, and I don't say that in seven years the old wound hasn't healed a bit. But to-night you have, unknowingly, undone all that time had done. I'm a man that has been down into hell. I bought myself out. I thought I knew where the pit was located. I thought I was well away from it, Mr. Harley, and you have told me something tonight which makes me think that ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... I may understand, my Lords of Salisbury and Chester are fully disposed, by the consent of all your other ambassadors, to suive [pursue] the reformation in the church, in the head and the members, having no regard to no benefices[55] that they have, (p. 060) rather than it should be left undone. And of this I doubt me nought that these two lords will abide hard and nigh, always by the good advice and deliberation of your brother the King of Rome. Moreover, liketh you to wit, that on Sunday, the last day of January, your brother, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... her; but there was her precious brother lying before her with a horrible worm gnawing at his heart, and what to her were a thousand generations unborn! Rather with Macbeth she might well "wish the estate o' the world were now undone"—most of all when, in the silent watches of the night, as she sat by the bedside of her beloved and he slept, his voice would come murmuring out of a dream, sounding so far away that it seemed as if his spirit only and not his lips had spoken the words, "Oh Helen, darling, give me my knife. Why ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... asking, yet wait many years; To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares— To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs. To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To spend, to give, to want, to be undone. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... to bend all his efforts against Greece, and, appreciating apparently to the full the magnitude and difficulty of the task, resolved that nothing should be left undone which could possibly be done in order to render success certain. The experience of former years had taught some important lessons. The failure of Datis had proved that such an expedition as could be conveyed by sea across the Egean would be insufficient ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... and seated upon the floor, where, after listening for a few moments, he stripped down one of his blue worsted stoutly-knitted stockings, sought for a likely place, cut through a thread, and, pulling steadily, it rapidly came undone. This furnished him with a line of worsted some ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... he, "while every fellow who calls himself a preacher is allowed to do it in the pulpit with impunity! Fine him five shillings for every curse, as you might if people had courage and common sense, and then complain of me! I am a fool, I know, though. But I cannot stand it! To have all my work undone by a brutal ignorant fanatic!—It is too much! Here, if you will believe it, are those preaching fellows getting up a revival, or some such invention, just to make money out of the cholera! They have got down a great gun from the county town. Twice a-day they are preaching at them, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... most orthodox acquaintance of mine out of a chapel of ease a perfect atheist. Have you found or founded a residence yet? and have you begun or finished a poem? If you won't tell me what I have done, pray say what you have done, or left undone, yourself. I am still in equipment for voyaging, and anxious to hear from, or of, you before I go, which anxiety you should remove more readily, as you think I sha'n't cogitate about you afterwards. I shall give the lie to that calumny by fifty foreign letters, particularly ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... of the dying man full of scorn. Craven's glance fell before that steady look. He muttered a hope that the wound was but slight; then, in torture, burst out: "'Twas a slip. By Heaven, it was, Volney! I would to God it were undone." ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... no less dreadful. Perhaps they hadn't seen us go overboard; and even if they had, the frigate— being undone by its rudder—couldn't return to leeward after us. So we could count only ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... not anything you have done, or that you have left undone. But I took you into my house and into my heart, and only asked you to love and trust me, and you forgot it all in a moment, and were ready to believe the worst of me. A stranger told you that I had secretly planned your ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... continued—"See now, Leo, three great dangers has thy body passed of late upon its journey to my side; the Death-hounds, the Mountains, and the Precipice. Know that these were but types and ordained foreshadowings of the last threefold trial of thy soul. From the pursuing passions of Atene which must have undone us both, thou hast escaped victorious. Thou hast endured the desert loneliness of the sands and snows starving for a comfort that never came. Even when the avalanche thundered round thee thy faith stood fast as it stood above the Pit of flame, while after bitter ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... that success was just back of the curtain. Now he was to meet the little man who had made this prospect of success possible. Now his greetings must be cordial and appreciative. Nothing should be left undone to overcome the disappointments the midget must endure. In his first meeting with Davy, Welborn had tried to discourage the plan of "holing up" in a remote section, far removed from the things to which he was accustomed. He pictured himself as an old grouch, soured on the world, and ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... for the Lord's sake, what will become of me? Will my mistress keep me, or will she turn me off? Will she stay here, or will she go into the country? And if she goes into the country, will she take me with her, or leave me here to be starved and undone?' ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... nothing but the result, and never to be regarded as the determining principle, of his causality as a noumenon. In this view now the rational being can justly say of every unlawful action that he performs, that he could very well have left it undone; although as appearance it is sufficiently determined in the past, and in this respect is absolutely necessary; for it, with all the past which determines it, belongs to the one single phenomenon of his character which he makes for himself, in consequence ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... designs. She was in effect bartering her toleration of their religion in exchange for her reception in Scotland and for their support of her claim to be named Elizabeth's successor. With Mary's landing at Leith the position of the English Queen had suddenly changed. Her work seemed utterly undone. The national unity for which she was struggling was broken. The presence of Mary woke the party of the old faith to fresh hopes and a fresh activity, while it roused a fresh fear and fanaticism in the party of the new. Scotland, where Elizabeth's influence had ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... the bill, said that those who were voting for the second reading, in the hope of introducing amendments in committee, were acting a very foolish and dangerous part. They might beat government on different clauses; but all that was done in the committee might be undone on bringing up the report. Lord Eldon, on the same side, said that no man was or could be an enemy to reform; but, he thought, the first duty of every peer was to consider whether what was proposed was or was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... most perilous crisis. It was in danger of being submerged and suffocated by unsympathetic, if not positively unfriendly, associations. It ran the risk, after so many years of toil and conflict, of being undone by those in whose support it was forced to confide. Such would undoubtedly have been its fate if, owing to circumstances over which no political party or other organization of men had control, the current of Anti-Slavery sentiment had not risen ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... alone in her room she drew from her pocket a parcel containing something which Dowie had bought for her on their way home. When undone it revealed two or three tallow candles, a precious present in view of her hopes. But how should she get a light—for this was long before lucifer matches had risen even upon the horizon of Glamerton? There ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... his way to the door. "Begone! go to madame if you like, and tell her that if old Achille Perigord can do anything to save our young master and this poor young lady from your horrible schemes he will not leave it undone, I ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... friendship, had not been consulted. Godolphin devoured his ill temper. Caermarthen ordered out his wonderful yacht, and hastened to complain to the King, who was then at Loo. But what had been done could not be undone. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more here, at least to-day," Newton went on. "I must bid you a good-afternoon. You may be sure I will leave nothing undone to discover the missing will, and I can only say I earnestly hope I may ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... walked by the lady's side! Upon each other this lord and lady gazed with kindling eyes. Full secretly this happed. Was perchance a white hand there fervently pressed by heart-felt love? That know I not; yet I cannot believe that this was left undone, for soon had she betrayed to him her love. Nevermore in summertide nor in the days of May bare he within his heart such lofty joy as now he gained, when hand in hand he walked with her whom he fain ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... the way assumed by our dogmatic teachers has the morality of human nature been built up. The power which has moulded us thus far has worked with stern tools upon a very rigid stuff. What it has done cannot be so readily undone; and it has endowed us with moral constitutions which take pleasure in the noble, the beautiful, and the true, just as surely as it has endowed us with sentient organisms, which find aloes bitter and sugar sweet. That power did not work with delusions, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... was a mistake, of course. Howard was in no position to marry. They should have waited. They both realized their folly now. But what was done could not be undone. She realized, too, that it was worse for Howard than it was for her. It had ruined his prospects at the outset of his career and threatened to be an irreparable blight on his entire life. She realized that she was largely to blame. She had done wrong to ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... organizing woman's work. But those days of latent suspicion or more open antagonism are long past. The institution has justified its right to be by doing a work that otherwise would have remained undone. ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... were blended in one draught," said Ramorny, "it would lose influence over me when I look upon this." He drew his right arm from beneath the cover of the bedclothes, and extending it towards the Prince, wrapped as it was in dressings, "Were these undone and removed," he said, "your Highness would see that a bloody stump is all that remains of a hand ever ready to unsheath the sword at ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... little vixen, Fluff, is right—she's in love with the fellow, and she's throwing herself at his head; it's perfectly awful to think of it. She has forgotten all about her old father. I'll be a beggar in my old age; the Firs will have to go; I'll be ruined, undone. Oh, was there ever such an undutiful daughter? I must go to her. I must hobble up to that distant spot as quickly as possible; perhaps when she sees me she may pause before she irrevocably commits ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... are shortened in being drawn up through the wells, the ship lifts. The ship lifts if all be well—if the chains do not part, or some other accident occur; but the wreckers need great patience, and sometimes they see the labor of weeks undone in a minute. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... common sin of the public speaker, is not a transgression—it is rather a sin of omission, for it consists in living up to the confession of the Prayer Book: "We have left undone those things we ought to ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... that he would have the bag away from me by main force. But I rallied all my forces to save it. "I'm lagged now," I said. "I haven't undone my things. I'll give it to you ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... shaded and kept damp, it will bear an abundant crop of woody fibre, which, composed almost entirely of carbon and water, drains hardly any mineral constituents from the soil. But if that jungle be once cleared off, the slow and careful work of ages has been undone in a moment. The burning sun bakers up everything; and the soil, having no mineral staple wherewith to support a fresh crop if planted, is reduced to aridity and sterility for years to come. Timber, therefore, I believe, and timber only, is the proper crop for these poor ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... rested by common accord, giving themselves truce until they should be rested, and the first to get up again should recall the others. They rested long, and there were some who drank wine which was brought to them in bottles. They rebuckled their armor, which had got undone, and dressed their wounds. Four French and two English were ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... looks cross, and 'alf inclined to use strong language, I makes a 'umble apology, an' gets undone as fast as possible, but if she larfs, and says, 'Stoopid boy; w'y don't you look before you?' or suthin o' that sort, I just 'ooks on another tag to another button w'en we're a fumblin' at the first one, and so goes on till we get to be quite sociable over it—I might almost say confidential. ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... and complex character of the phenomena will never be obvious to our fussy little politicians, so apt to advocate panaceas which have effects quite opposite to those they desire. But, whatever politicians may wish to do or to leave undone, it is well to remember that, of the various ideals the world holds, there are some that lie on the path of our social progress, and others that do not there lie. We may properly exercise such wisdom as we possess by utilizing the ideals which are before us, serenely neglecting ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... concludes by denouncing the anger of God, and a fine of two hundred pounds weight of gold upon those who disturb the establishment, "that they may learn to their confusion that the good deeds of their ancestors, undertaken for the love of God, are not to be undone with impunity." ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... and joy of his home. The doctor might seem hard and cold to outsiders, wrapped up in his scientific studies and pursuits, giving little thought or care to any other affairs, but he had an intense capacity for loving, and he lavished his affection upon his young sister, leaving nothing undone that might increase ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... Earl Russell gave the hint that our cause was more popular in England than that of the South. We have gratefully accepted the friendly acts already alluded to. Better late than not at all. But the past cannot be undone. British "neutrality" has strengthened the arms that have been raised against our national life, and winged the bloody messengers that have desolated our households. Still, every act of justice which has even a show of good-will in it is received ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... in a manner more in accordance with epic precedent by representing Henry's action as the effect of a divine vision. Edward the Third or the Black Prince would have risen from the grave to urge him to renew and complete their interrupted and now almost undone work; or the ghosts of chiefs untimely slain would have reproached him with their abandoned conquests and neglected graves. Drayton has merely taken the story as he found it, without a thought of submitting its dross to the alchemy of the re-creative ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... our ways might become irksome to Christian, if he inherited a love for outdoor life, and for moving from place to place. I thought I would say that perhaps I was wrong ever to have taken him away from his own people; but as it was done and could not be undone, we might perhaps make the best of it together. I hope you understand me, though you say nothing? You see, if he is a gipsy at heart, he has also been brought up to many comforts you cannot give him, ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... beauty which is required in a bride? I appeal, whether my Lord Philautus or myself be the advocate of nobility; against which, in the case proposed by me, there would be nothing to hold the balance. And why is a woman, if she may have but L1,500, undone? If she be unmarried, what nobleman allows his daughter in that case a greater revenue than so much money may command? And if she marry, no nobleman can give his daughter a greater portion than she has. Who is hurt in this case?—nay, who is not benefited? If the agrarian ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... Billy, have often heard how folks are ruined and undone, By overturns in carriages, by fires and thieves ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... forgive me, I pray, for the poor way in which I have done even that which I have attempted to do; and forgive me also for that which I have left undone. ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... stopped. So he stayed his pick and sang out, "Spell ho, mates! here are neighbours want to get past." Whereon the others stopped also, and, drawing around us, helped the old horse by easing our wheels over the half undone road, and then, like men with a pleasant task on hand, hurried back to their work, only stopping to give us a smiling good-day; so that the sound of the picks broke out again before Greylocks had ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid, As mid the virgin train she strayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white quire. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; The gay enchantment was undone, A gentle wife, but fairy none. When I said, "I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth." As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground pine curled its pretty ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... friendship does not lie in what one does for one's friends, but in what, out of regard for them, one leaves undone. ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... into the inner movement of the matter here indicated. The slaughter of the Suitors by Ulysses was undoubtedly a negative act, yet the Suitors also were negative in conduct, wholly so; thus violence is met and undone by violence, or negation negates negation. What is the outcome? Manifestly a double result is possible: if a negative cancels a negative, there may remain still negation, or there may be a positive result. Ulysses has passed through the first of these stages by ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... escaped any serious hurt. Nimrod was a great deal more undone than I. He had not dared to go fast for fear of making Blondey go faster, and he now came rushing up, with the fear of death upon his face and the most ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... writes to his wife from England that he has invented "a sort of artificial resolution respecting things that are difficult of performance. My device," he continues, "is this: I give my word of honor most solemnly to myself to do or to leave undone this or that. I am of course extremely cautious in the use of this expedient, but when once the word is given, even though I afterwards think I have been precipitate or mistaken, I hold it to be perfectly irrevocable, whatever inconveniences I foresee likely to result. If I were capable ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... verge of day begun, When Orpheus, her unhappy lord, Eurydice to life restor'd, At once beheld, and lost, and was undone. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... week, when it was of most value to me, I gained considerable kudos for a lucky catch; a ball, of which I had merely heard the hum, stuck fast in my hand, which Lord Amersteth himself grasped in public congratulation. This happy accident was not to be undone even by me, and, as nothing succeeds like success, and the constant encouragement of the one great cricketer on the field was in itself an immense stimulus, I actually made a run or two in my very next innings. Miss Melhuish said pretty things ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... obtained Massa and Serezana. Toward the end of May they proceeded in the direction of Lucca, burning the towns, destroying the growing crops, grain, trees, and vines, driving away the cattle, and leaving nothing undone to injure the enemy. The Lucchese, finding themselves abandoned by the duke, and hopeless of defending the open country, forsook it; entrenched and fortified the city, which they doubted not, being well garrisoned, they would be able ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... said he, "I am undone. I have lived ill and the saints have found me out. My arm hangs feeble at my side. I am turned back from being a man into a boy. I am unworthy of you—and a shame to myself—Humphrey," said he, clutching my ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... of it, he determined to give his assistance. The effect of that assistance cannot be better described than in Steele's own words. "I fared," he said, "like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, "was advanced indeed. It was raised to a greater thing than I ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... viceroy's power But from the tempest's rage another must. Yet you had better fall into God's hands, Than into those of men. [To the herdsman. Herdsman, do thou Console my wife, should aught of ill befall me. I do but what I may not leave undone. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... lovely composition of man and angel! with the addition of his eternal youth and illustrious birth, was formed by heaven and nature for universal conquest! And who can love the charming hero at a cheaper rate than being undone? And she that would not venture fame, honour, and a marriage-vow for the glory of the young Cesario's heart, merits not the noble victim; oh! would I could say so much for the young Philander, who would run a thousand times more hazards ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... ways this argument may be refuted. One who cannot refuse to do a thing may nevertheless wish to do it; indeed there is no greater proof of a fixed desire to do anything, than not to be able to alter one's determination. A good man cannot leave undone what he does: for unless he does it he will not be a good man. Is a good man, then, not able to bestow a benefit, because he does what he ought to do, and is not able not to do what he ought to do? Besides this, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... grandfather's. Little time was lost in bringing the doctors—Anderson of the man-of-war, and his friend, Dr Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads; they laboured strenuously, and left nothing undone. But he had passed the bounds of human skill. He had grown so well and strong, that his wasted lungs were unable to bear the stress of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... And as every blow is wont to fall with double sharpness upon those who are discouraged by misfortune, when at other times they would hardly have felt it at all, so now, when the people heard the bells of Saint Mark's proclaim in solemn muffled tones the death of their Duke, they were utterly undone with sorrow and grief. Their support, their hope, was now gone, and they would have to bend their necks to the Genoese yoke, they cried, in despite of the fact that Dandolo's loss did not seem to have any very counteractive effect upon the ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... undone; And thou hast ta'en that massy sheet of lead That hid thy husband's bones, and folded it ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... the Englishman, frightened and amazed, as if he was bewitched, to the governor Spaniard, and tells him they were all undone, for there were strangers upon the island, but he could not tell who they were. The Spaniard, pausing a while, says to him, "How do you mean—you cannot tell who? They are the savages, to be sure." "No, no," says the Englishman, "they are men in clothes, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... knees and the other women squatted round her like a huddled-up mass of terror-stricken humanity, with hair undone and pale, quivering lips and staring ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... repent my ingratitude; yet, believe me too, it was my passion, my unbounded passion for you, which hurried me so far: I have loved you long and tenderly, and the goodness you have shown me hath innocently weighed down a wretch undone before. Acquit me of all mean, mercenary views; and, before I take my leave of you for ever, which I am resolved instantly to do, believe me that Fortune could have raised me to no height to which ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... cunt the effect was irresistible on the slightly struggling lady, who suddenly opened her legs as widely as possible to meet his charge, and throwing her arms around his neck, returned his kisses with equal ardour as she sighed, "Oh, I am undone, give it me now, dear Doctor, but oh! oh!! oh!!! how shall we take the Holy Communion to-morrow?" as he thrust so vigorously that she was almost beside herself ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... the window on the fatal night with the canister in his hand he tried to recollect if there was anything left undone or any tracks remaining uncovered. There was no light in his room, but a fire burned in the grate, throwing flickering reflections ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... rode Humphrey at a good pace, but he found no Hugo there. "Here is a snarl to be undone!" he cried. "The lad is too headstrong. Perchance he hath already run into the noose of the other king's man. For who knoweth where he is? And I shall be held to answer for it. This cometh of a man being servant to a boy and a stranger at that. ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... fear. For even if I am pardoned, even if I am brought here and nothing is done to me—then I am undone. Elle me soupfonnera toute sa vie—me, me, the poet, the thinker, the man whom she has worshipped ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of a branch between themselves and himself when they started. And if they came up with him and wounded him, he was not let join them; or if his spears had trembled in his hand, or if a branch of a tree had undone the plaiting of his hair, or if he had cracked a dry stick under his foot, and he running. And they would not take him among them till he had made a leap over a stick the height of himself, and till he had stooped under ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Thus far father was the only one who seemed untouched by it. Even I had felt the pressure of it. Those appeals she had made when she had begged me to remember how Johnny Montgomery had implored me, as she said, with his look, to be silent—they had nearly undone me, and still they ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... opposition was strongest and hostility most bitter, he flung himself into the fray; at moments it seemed as though he would wrest victory from an adverse fate, but when he went away, the effect of his presence gradually evaporated, and his work was half undone before he had been gone a day. In the Governor's household the accounts of his doings were allowed to pass in silence; they had become a forbidden topic. Alicia might devour them in solitude, and the Governor himself watch them with an almost sympathetic interest; Lady Eynesford ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... "Many things undone, and many that might have been done better. But God is good and merciful, boy. He doesn't expect ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... ends of some evergreen, and putting them beneath his head, went to the horses, loosened the cinches, took off the bridles, led them to drink, and picketed them to feed. Further still, to leave nothing undone which she could herself manage, she took the horses' saddles off to refold the blankets when the time should come, and meanwhile brought them for him. But he put them away from him. He was sitting up against a rock, stronger evidently, and asking for cold water. His head ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... and the voice of an officer giving a command. Then I felt the boat being drawn in by the cord with which it was attached to the quay. Next the other boat that lay over me was lifted off, the ropes that bound we were undone and I was set upon my feet, for already I was so stiff that I could scarcely stand. A voice which I recognised as that of the eunuch Houman, addressed me in respectful tones, which made me think I ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... well as I do," said Clarence, controlling his voice with an effort, "that what you have done there will have to be undone, if you wish to hold even those lawless men of yours together, or keep yourself and them from being run into the brush like highwaymen. I've no fear for that. Neither do I care to know what was your motive in doing it; but I can only tell you that if it was retaliation, I alone ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... you hear how matters go; I am undone, my child is cast away. You did your best, at least I think the best; But we are all crost; flatly, ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... or wrist has thus been bound for some little time with the medium bandage, so that it has not only got swollen and livid but cold, when the fillet is undone is aware of something cold making its way upwards along with the returning blood, and reaching the elbow or the axilla. And I have myself been inclined to think that this cold blood rising upwards to the heart was the cause of the fainting that often occurs ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... street in a whirl of conflicting emotions. At the very moment when he seemed to have prevailed over Miss Parkinson's machinations, his evil fate had stepped in and undone him for ever! What would become of him without Matilda? As he was thinking of his gloomy prospects, he noticed, for the first time, that the statue was keeping step by his side, and he turned on her with smothered rage. "Well," he began, "I hope ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... deal better than most towns treat us," said the Manager. "Now, Mr. Jones, you will have to excuse me; I have some business with the President. Don't fail to look in on me when you come to town; and rest assured that the Santa Fe will leave nothing undone that might ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... with it the Todds. All that winter they had been so far from me, often so far from my thoughts even, that the remembrance of them would bring a shock like a sudden consciousness of sin or the recollection of a duty left undone. My fiancee's communication with me had dwindled to a weekly post-card. At first these had carried to me some little hint of affection, but latterly Gladys had contented herself with commonplace scrawls announcing that this was ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... Undone by fools at home, abroad by knaves, The isle of saints became the land of slaves, Trembling beneath her proud oppressor's hand; But, when thy reason thunder'd through the land, Then all the public spirit ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... dear wife," said he, "and you, my children, I, your dear friend, am in myself undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover I am for certain informed that this our city will be burned with fire from heaven, in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee, my wife, and you my sweet babes, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... as a mother, though really my nephew. You must give the same explanation. Jasper is at home now, not very well pleased to find that he has a step-mother. But it is done, and he will find it can't be undone. Be prudent, follow my directions implicitly, and you will find ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... strange fatigue party to dig a funk-hole for us in front of it in case it were badly shelled; but I remember as a particular grievance that when the foreign fatigue party heard they were to go somewhere else, they went off, leaving their work half undone, and with our Brigade tools, though I had given them distinct orders to do neither of these things. But they were now out of my jurisdiction, so nothing could be done except to send them a message to return our tools—which they ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... don't think he knew us."... And through her head blew the words like a searching wind: "You darling! You darling!" Oh, that was great love! Small wonder that James saw nothing of the Piersons. And yet—ah, she must give up speculating and judging. That had undone poor Psyche. Young Mr. Pierson chattered away about Madge and Wagner, both ripping; James returned, bland, positive, dazzling the man of exclusive clubs; was reminded of young Mrs. Pierson, with whom he shook hands, of young Mr. Pierson, to whom he nodded and said ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... left Boulogne, he made his arrangements to pass through Abbeville, and to stop twenty four hours there. The mayor of the town left nothing undone towards a suitable reception, and Abbeville was magnificent on that day. The finest trees from the neighboring woods were taken up bodily with their roots to form avenues in all the streets through which the First Consul was to pass; and some of the citizens, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... angry man will prefer vengeance, a lascivious his whore, a thief his booty, a glutton his belly, before his welfare." Tell an epicure, a covetous man, an ambitious man of his irregular course, wean him from it a little, pol me occidistis amici, he cries anon, you have undone him, and as [415]a "dog to his vomit," he returns to it again; no persuasion will take place, no ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... hand-rail in a desperate effort at erectness, Mr. Royall stepped stiffly ashore. Like the young men of the party, he wore a secret society emblem in the buttonhole of his black frock-coat. His head was covered by a new Panama hat, and his narrow black tie, half undone, dangled down on his rumpled shirt-front. His face, a livid brown, with red blotches of anger and lips sunken in like an old man's, was a lamentable ruin ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... begun, while they were taking coffee, with a determination to shake off what she inwardly called her selfishness, and turned a face all cheerful attention to her husband when he said, "My dear Dorothea, we must now think of all that is yet left undone, as a preliminary to our departure. I would fain have returned home earlier that we might have been at Lowick for the Christmas; but my inquiries here have been protracted beyond their anticipated period. I trust, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... enthusiastically consulted her on the navigation of the North-West Passage. For the last fifteen years he had been trying to collect ships and men for the enterprise. "It is the only thing in the world left undone whereby a notable mind might be made famous and fortunate," ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... in misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say they can alienate the affections of his subjects from the crown; but I will affirm, that they make the crown not worth his wearing; I will not say the king is betrayed, but I will pronounce the kingdom undone." Chatham's motion was supported by the Duke of Richmond, the Marquess of Rockingham, the Earl of Shelburne, and Lord Camden, who were, however, not fully agreed as to the propriety of recalling the troops, and who seem to have considered ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... closed my eyes for sleep I could hear that solemn chant "Duncan is in his grave. After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." With horror and admiration I recalled him, when as Sir Giles, with palsied hand helpless by his side, his face distorted, he muttered as if to himself, "Some undone widow sits upon my sword," or when as Petruchio in making a playful snatch at Kate's hand with the blaze of a lion's anger in his eye his voice rang out, "Were it the paw of an angry bear, I'd smite it off—but as it's Kate's ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... situation arises, the current seeks the old path with much greater readiness than before, and vastly more effort is required to overcome it. Some one has likened the effect of these exceptions to that produced when one drops a ball of string that is partially wound. By a single slip, more is undone than can be ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... That old fox knows how to cover his tracks. But the attorney-general did more than any one else could have done. He hauled Burr to trial, almost single-handed, and against the greatest public clamor. He leaves nothing undone in the pursuit of his duty. I understand that he is to be here soon. He thinks that something should be done to put down the lawlessness of this country as Andrew Jackson has subdued ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... and welcome. To me it would be less pleasant to leave them undone; less now, than ever in my life. After what I've gone through, I don't care much for character—in truth, not a straw. That's all stuff and pretension. Money makes the man, and without it he's nothing; though ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... from the capital to make a short process and a sharp execution for all the criminals. On the 16th of May, the slaughter commenced. Some were burned at the stake, some were beheaded: the number of victims was frightful. "Nothing was left undone by the magistrates," says an eyewitness, with great approbation, "which could serve for the correction and amendment of the poor people." It was long before the judges and hangmen rested from their labors. When at last ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sole alternative. Yet will death bring rest to your weariness, think you? Would not Death's eyes look kindlier on you, if you had used more worthily Death's brother,—Life? What would you give, Manetho, to see all that you have done undone? if to undo it ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... looking back afterward on that glorified fishing trip, was forced to confess that Justin left nothing undone for her which could be done. Never in her life had she been deferred to by such a charming youth, never had her little budget of small talk received such respectful consideration, never had she been waited on, hand and ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey |
