"Wreck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he passionately answered. "It means the wreck of all my hopes. It means ruin to all ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... we get a shock that ought to bring us to our senses. When we learn of a terrible railroad wreck, we may expect to find the blame placed on someone for disobeying orders, or for other carelessness, but the true cause in nearly every instance is the cry of the public—of you and me and the other fellow—for speed—more speed—and ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... seems to be literally impossible. That decisiveness of character, that moral nerve which takes hold of the rope thrown for the rescue and keeps its hold amidst all the resistances that have to be encountered, is wanting. It is gone. The general wreck has shattered and ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... lost last week, and your nephew was named for one of the passengers. As Mrs. Noel had expected him for a fortnight, I own my apprehensions were strengthened; but I will say no more on a dissipated panic. However, this incident and his half-wreck at Lerici will, I hope, prevent him from the future from staying with you so late in the year; and I see by your letter that you agree with me, of which I should be sure though you had ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... has really gone to Blagdon, he will not be back under an hour at least," broke in Medenham's disdainful voice. "Unless you wish to wreck your car you will not attempt to ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... last with a shudder, and walked aft. The wreck was unquestionably some Spanish or Portuguese carrack or galleon as old as I have stated; for you saw her shape when you stood on her deck, and her castellated stern rising into a tower from her poop and poop-royal, as it was called, proved her ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... wanders forth again, With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, Which, though 'twere wild—as on the plundered wreck When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck - Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... public orators if we consider the matter, style, or manner of delivery. Men can deal in statistics and logical deductions, but women only can describe the horrors of intemperance—can draw aside the curtain and show us the wreck it makes of domestic love and home enjoyment—can paint the anguish of the drunkard's wife and the miseries of his children. Wisdom would seem to dictate that those who feel the most severely the effects of any evil, should best know how to remove it. If this be so, it ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... takes Frank to hatch up a clever scheme on the spur of the moment! He's dragging that old wild grave-vine out from the wreck of the tree!" was what Bluff exclaimed in an ecstasy of satisfaction. "Oh! why didn't he tell me to go along with him? What if he can't ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... were threatened against others who had profited by the wreck of the fortune of Ravenswood; and Sir William Ashton, in particular, was menaced with an appeal to the House of Peers, a court of equity, against the judicial sentences, proceeding upon a strict and severe construction of the letter of the law, under which he held the castle and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... intricacy which we have to deal with," says Walter Lippmann, "have done more than anything else, I imagine, to wreck the simple generalizations ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... the powder was to be poured from the paper to the invalid's tongue. Bainbridge was interested in Peters—not only selfishly and with a motive to learn the facts of the old sailor's strange voyage; but he was also interested in the poor old wreck for the sake of the man himself. I saw that in the opinion of Bainbridge, if that white powder were administered to the invalid it would injure him—probably weaken him, and cause a relapse, and perhaps even an earlier death than otherwise might occur; and I saw that Bainbridge ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... and to put on both my suits of clothes on the colder nights. Two days later, however, the problem was solved in more luxurious style by the arrival of a big brown tin box from my mother, which was as welcome to me, and as much of a windfall, as the Spanish wreck to Robinson Crusoe. There were too pairs of thick blankets, two sheets, a counterpane, a pillow, a camp-stool, two stuffed bears' paws (of all things in this world!), two terra-cotta vases, a tea-cosy, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... fear the privateers! I jest of them; my vessel is armed in man of war, I have a vigilant and courageous equipage, and the ammunitions don't want me its. Never have you not done wreck? That ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... most beseechful, "Gi' me the ball, gi' me the ball, an' let Hodge an' Roger throw me over the line. It's no use tryin' to buck through." The doggone loon still thought the was playin' football, I don't reckon a railroad wreck would give one o' them football ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... forth alone, and even tried to persuade himself that he was indifferent as to the hour of her return; but she had not long been gone before he followed. Insufferable misery possessed him. His married life threatened to terminate in utter wreck, and he had the anguish of recognizing that to a great extent this catastrophe would be his own fault. Resolve as he might, he found it impossible to repress the impulses of jealousy which, as soon as peace had been declared between them, brought about a new misunderstanding. Terrible thoughts ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... same purpose. Sorrow is selfish and engrossing, or I would have written to express that, even in my own despair, I felt a gleam of pleasure at learning her happy prospects, and at hearing that the good old Baron has escaped the general wreck. Give this to my dearest Rose; it is her poor Flora's only ornament of value, and was the gift of a princess.' She put into his hands a case containing the chain of diamonds with which she used to decorate her hair. 'To me it is in future useless. The kindness of my friends has secured me a retreat ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of Safa, about an hour after we had passed what our Rais told us was the last rapid of consequence we should have to encounter, we saw the wreck of a boat lying against a rock in the middle of the river, her masts alone appearing out of the water. The river here is interrupted by several high insulated rocks. We had been assured that we should now find the river open and without difficulty, till we should come to Succoot; the appearance ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... of bridge, a stream, or slow current of quagmire for him,—and is in imminent hazard. Ziethen's behavior was superlative (details of it unintelligible off the ground); and Baronay fled totally in wreck;—his own horse shot, and at the moment no other to be had; swam the quagmire, or swashed through it, 'by help of a tree;' and had a near miss of capture. Recovering himself on the other side, Baronay, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... flakes were settling down over the white leprous patches of frozen earth where the hogs had gnawed even the sod away. He shuddered and began to walk, trampling heavily with his ungainly feet. He was the wreck of ten winters on the Divide and he knew what that meant. Men fear the winters of the Divide as a child fears night or as men in the North Seas fear the still dark cold of the polar twilight. His eyes fell upon his ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... carelessness, than to roll in wealth by keeping a liquor saloon, and I am determined that no drunkard shall ever charge me with having helped drag him down to misery, shame and death. No drunkard's wife shall ever lay the wreck of her home at ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... mad spleen, But could not: therefore all the billows green Toss'd up the silver spume against the clouds. The tempest came: I saw that vessel's shrouds 660 In perilous bustle; while upon the deck Stood trembling creatures. I beheld the wreck; The final gulphing; the poor struggling souls: I heard their cries amid loud thunder-rolls. O they had all been sav'd but crazed eld Annull'd my vigorous cravings: and thus quell'd And curb'd, think on't, O Latmian! did I sit Writhing with pity, and a cursing fit Against that hell-born ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance. In another place —p. 45, —he speaks of the mysterious and mortal attack of the animal. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... surroundings. He had no friends in Hilltown, and having lived all alone, it would be possible for him to do it. Helen remembered Mr. Howard's saying of the night before, how the sight of her baseness might wreck a man's life forever, and the more she thought of that, the more it made her tremble. It seemed almost more than she could bear to see this fearful consequence of her sin, and to know that it had become a fact of the outer world, and gone beyond her power. It seemed ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... synthesis in silence and in vain. They had refused to hear Stallo. They had betrayed little interest in Crookes. At last their universe had been wrecked by rays, and Karl Pearson undertook to cut the wreck loose with an axe, leaving science adrift on a sensual raft in the midst of a supersensual chaos. The confusion seemed, to a mere passenger, worse than that of 1600 when the astronomers upset the world; it resembled rather the convulsion ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... taxing their fidelity any farther. M. Bourquin was much incensed against this obstinate antagonist; but the latter obtained terms through the mediation of the other officers, and was allowed to retire to British territory with the wreck of his fortune, on the 1st of January, 1802. He died in August, on his way down to Calcutta, and was interred at Barhampur. He left a family, of whom the Begam Sumroo at first took charge, but their descendants have now become mixed with the ordinary population ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... of francs,' he muttered. With absolute pathos he related to Mr. Powys the aberrations of the divinely-gifted voice, the wreck which Vittoria strove to become, and from which he alone was striving to rescue her. He used abundant illustrations, coarse and quaint, and was half hysterical; flashing a white fist and thumping the long projection of his knee with a wolfish ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... difficult for the State of Germany to fight the State of Russia, or the State of France, or that of England, or all of them, and to trample neutral Belgium, as it now would be, here, for the State of Pennsylvania to declare war on the States of New York and Connecticut and to wreck New Jersey as she sent her ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... life goes on as thine would go, With all its sweetness spilled: My God, why should one heart of two Beat on, when one is stilled? Through heart-wreck, or home-wreck, Thy happy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... voice, clear, penetrating, and vibrant, gave out the strange challenge: "Well, here you see before you the miserable wreck who is to be your host; you must make the best you can of him. Give me ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... to have to clear a wreck and repair damages; and the injured party does not immediately recover his equanimity after such a mishap, especially coming fresh upon a former instance of trouble occasioned barely a fortnight before. But after a victory all things are forgiven, and ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... may,—desolation or loss, The prick of the thorn, or the weight of the cross— You can bear it,—nor feel you are wholly bereft, While the bosom that beats for you only, is left? While the birdlings are spared that have made it so blest, Can you look, undismayed, on the wreck of ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... example. He seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils, and that part of the woodwork which could be applied to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This chapter in their memorable day's work being finished, and the whole of their ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the very nose of his army." I saw the two white standards taken from the Catholic troops flanking the high altar of the Cathedral; which also contains the grandly-carved case of an organ taken from a wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588, just a century before the siege. The people have ever before them these warlike spoils, which may account for their martial spirit. An old Prentice Boy told me of the great doings of 1870, how a Catholic publican, one O'Donnell, endeavoured ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... had disappeared between the livid creases of skin. Then we carried him into the other room, where he lay with a clay-colored face, puffing his purple lips in and out with every breath—a dreadful wreck of all that he had ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... also that there are two spheres of influence, requiring different qualities for their perfect use, as there are two forces in a planetary system. If these forces attempted to work on one line the result would be the wreck of the whole, but in their balance one against the other, apparently contrary, in reality at one, the equilibrium of the whole is secured. One is for motor force and the other for central control; both working in concert establish the harmony of planetary motion and ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... theories, his party measures, and his official administration with condemnation, in an avalanche of ballots.[1] But the Charleston conspirators had within a very few days created for him a new issue overshadowing all the questions on which he had suffered political wreck. Since the 6th of November the campaign of the Border Ruffians for the conquest of Kansas, and the wider Congressional struggle for the possession of the Territories, might be treated as things of the past. Even had they still been pending issues, they ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... freedom loves to dwell, May give up all his peaceful mind, Guided by Plato's deathless page, In silent solitude resigned To the mild virtues of a sage; But I 'gainst whom wild whirlwinds wage Fierce war with wreck-denouncing wing, Must be to face the tempest's rage, In thought, in life, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... greatest danger. A repetition of the July days is being prepared—but on a much wider basis and therefore still more destructive in its consequences." In his Novaya Zhizn, Gorki daily prophesied the approaching wreck of all civilization. In general, the Socialistic veneer of the bourgeois intellectuals was wearing off at the approach of the stern domination of the workers' dictatorship. But, on the other hand, the soldiers of even the most backward ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... could not think, he had made up his mind to commit suicide if I could not help him. I foresaw that it would in the best case demand months of insistent energy to make a man out of that unfortunate wreck. He had gone through three different morphine cures in three sanitariums and none had helped him, and every physician whom he had consulted had declared his case as beyond any physical cure. I decided to make the somewhat disproportionate sacrifice of time in order to ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... far astern. Under this apprehension he made the signal for engaging, while that for the line of battle was still displayed; and this inconsistency naturally introduced confusion. The fight was maintained with great vivacity by the few who engaged. The Real being quite disabled, and lying like a wreck upon the water, Mr. Matthews sent a fire-ship to destroy her; but the expedient did not take effect. The ship ordered to cover this machine did not obey the signal; so that the captain of the fire-ship was exposed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... day we passed five petrol drums which had been dumped. This meant that there was trouble, and some 14 miles from Hut Point we learned that the big end of the No. 2 cylinder of Day's motor had broken, and half a mile beyond we found the motor itself, drifted up with snow, and looking a mournful wreck. The next day's march (Sunday, November 5, A.M.) brought us to Corner Camp. There were a few legs down crevasses during the day but nothing to ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... known; Kindly hearts, they are flown; Here and there if but one Linger yet uneffaced, Imbecile tottering elves, Soon to be wreck'd on shelves, These scarce are half themselves, With age and ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... nods and is on his way like any credulous boy to clear the highway of fortune for Regan, by the wreck ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... she received a typewritten letter, signed 'Armand de la Tremouille,' full of protestations of undying love, telling a long and pathetic tale of years of suffering in a foreign land, whither he had drifted after having been rescued almost miraculously from the wreck of the Argentina, and where he never had been able to scrape a sufficient amount of money to pay for his passage home. At last fate had favoured him. He had, after many vicissitudes, found the whereabouts of his dear wife, and was now ready to forgive all that ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... out badly. His pride received a severe shock when his cousin was raised above him, and he has formed bad habits which in time will wreck him physically, unless he turns over a ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... from the water, and that fought under his hand—and at last he made up his mind that he would take no more life, though how he would live he knew not; and as for the world of men, he became very desirous to help a little as best he could; and there being at this time a wreck in the bay, when a boat and all on board were lost, he thought that he would wish, if he could, to keep a fire lit on dark nights, so that ships that passed should see that there was a dwelling there, and so keep farther away ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... should I take them? The Phoenicians are the only men who really honor Set; they fear lest he might wreck their ships. With us the poor alone revere him. Were I restricted to their offerings I should die of hunger, and my ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... to a miserable end, but the tone of the narrative is continued throughout. He is brought to live at last with his old mother in the Fleet prison, on a wretched annuity of fifty pounds per annum, which she has saved out of the general wreck, and there he dies of delirium tremens. For an assumed tone of continued irony, maintained through the long memoir of a life, never becoming tedious, never unnatural, astounding us rather by its naturalness, I know nothing equal ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... nervous shocks, they "see stars," and undergo rigors and nervous sweats which are severely debilitating. Often, too, they will lie awake all night after engaging in the act, and be more or less of a wreck for a day or ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... endlessly, like the pieces of a kaleidoscope, to confuse him in his search. Tonty was not at hand to take care of the colony while he groped for the lost river. He moved his wretched people from their camp, with all goods saved off the wreck in the bay, to a better site for a temporary fort, on rising ground. The carpenters proved good for nothing. La Salle himself planned buildings and marked out mortises on the logs. First a large house roofed with hides, and divided into apartments, was finished to shelter all. Separate ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... her family and favorites stood on the brink of ruin, her little portion of mind was employed only to preserve herself from danger. As a proof of the justness of this assertion, it is only necessary to observe that, in the general wreck, not a scrap of her writing has been found to criminate her; neither has she suffered a word to escape her to exasperate the people, even when burning with rage and contempt. The effect that adversity ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... neither,' says Cherokee, 'on the rocky wreck-sown shores of sport; an' not that I ever resorts to onderhand an' doobious deals myse'f; still, I'm cap'ble of p'intin' out the dangers. Scientists of my sort, no matter how troo an' faithful to the p'int of honour, is bound to savey all kyard dooplicities ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... a wreck, with no hope of improvement, Too feeble to race with an invalid crab; I'm wry in the neck, with a rickety movement Peculiarly ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... these young men. Some light wine was partaken of in addition to cigars, and each was thinking his own thoughts and forming his own plans even while the conversation was on other subjects. The bank robbery in London was spoken of, and in the course of the conversation the wreck of the yacht and the drowning of the three young men also were mentioned yet neither subject seemed of much interest, although Thorne remarked that he was ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... of her father's implication in the affair—was there foundation for it, more foundation than the hasty thought of a daughter still labouring under the effects of a great shock? He thought of Sloane, effeminate, shrill of voice, a trembling wreck, long ago a self-confessed ineffective in the battle of life—he, a murderer; he, capable of forceful action of any kind? It ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... do venture to exclaim against. I do cry aloud against this; and I do say this, that when we call it 'hard,' we are speaking of it softly. Why, consider how it is! The 'Athenaeum' has done quite enough to disprove the proving of the wreck story,[135] and no more at all. The disproving of the proof of the wreck story is indeed enough to disprove the wreck story and to disprove mesmerism itself (as far as the proof of mesmerism depends on the proof of the wreck story, and no farther) with all doubters and undetermined inquirers; ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... pride of England's host, In stern array stand marshall'd on her deck, Calmly as though they knew not they were lost— Lost in that shattered wreck. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the beach for the scene of the wreck Manned by Simeon Edwards, the oldest boatman in LLANDUDNO, and by members of the rescued crew, ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... order to prevent all kind of dispute and discussion in the said cases of shipwreck, it is agreed that when there shall be no Consul or Vice-Consul to attend to the saving of the wreck, or that the residence of the said Consul or Vice-Consul (he not being at the place of the wreck) shall be more distant from the said place than that of the competent judge of the country, the latter shall immediately proceed therein, with all the despatch, certainty, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... that our galleys ride, Pine-forest like, on every main? Ruin and wreck are at our side, Grim warders of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... temperament, after a month's absence from her husband, was excited twenty-six times within an hour and a quarter; her husband, a much older man, having two orgasms during this period; the wife admitted that she felt a "complete wreck" after this, but it is evident that if this case may be regarded as authentic the orgasms were of extremely slight intensity. A young woman, newly married to a physically robust man, once had intercourse with him eight ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Zealand, "to receive," says he, "the remains of our wreck, which I am uncertain into what port to carry." He wrote to Descordes, to whom he had already spoke his sentiments in several Letters, that he most humbly thanked the King for his inclination to honour him with his benefactions though absent, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... mitigating his offence in the eyes of those critics, increased it. "Why," said a noted bear, "with that amount of capital, and Wilkeson's first-rate talents—when he chose to use them—he might have become the king of Wall street. It's a pity so smart a fellow should make a wreck of himself." And the bear heaved a sigh of commiseration; which was by no means echoed by Mr. Minford, who gathered, from all this evidence, an increased esteem for ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... was as surprising to Madame as it was disconcerting. The consequences were such as her wily husband had foreseen. Encountering no externally resisting medium, its force was wasted by internal attrition, so that Madame was being reduced to a nervous wreck, all of which was duly appreciated ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... silent among the heaps of dead. A few able-bodied men and one or two officers, who had recovered all their energy at this crisis, gathered about them. The group was sufficiently large; there were about fifty men all told. A couple of hundred paces from them stood the wreck of the artillery bridge, which had broken down the day before; the major saw this, and "Let us make a ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... "Yellow!"—that is to say, the Elcuanam word for that suddenly unpopular color. He began to feel bitterly toward Big Flower, the cause, it seemed, of so much trouble, and even toward his departed parent, whose name, so long after his death, was such very bad medicine as to wreck his ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... prophesied would "flow on pure, bright, and sparkling to the last." It is the strength, not the weakness, of our friends that we would remember, and therefore Landor's letter of September, 1863, remained unanswered. It was better so. A year later he died of old age, and during this year he was but the wreck of himself. He became gradually more and more averse to going out, and to receiving visitors,—more indifferent, in fact, to all outward things. He used to sit and read, or, at all events, hold a book in his hand, and would sometimes write and sometimes give way to passion. "It was the swell of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Craye was diverting us, and he was very amusing. Mrs. Mountstuart told him afterward that he ought to be paid salvage for saving the wreck of her party. Sir Willoughby was a little too cynical; he talked well; what he said was good, but it was not good-humoured; he has not the reckless indifference of Colonel De Craye to uttering nonsense that amusement may come of it. And in the drawing-room he lost such ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his eye on young Lee. "Yes, young sir, your conduct has devoted to death thy father, thy kinsman, and the stranger that was in thine household. Such wreck hast thou ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... go on bravely; the cottage will be very pretty, and the bridge sublime, composed of loose rocks, that will appear to have been tumbled together there the very wreck of the deluge. One stone is of fourteen hundred weight. It will be worth a hundred of Palladio's brigades, that are only fit to be ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... turning sharp corners to follow that "will-o'-the wisp" transient success, at the expense of upright conduct. Neither suavity of manner nor the gilding of education will atone for disregarding the sanctity of obligation, the violation of which continues to wreck the lives and blast the promise of many. By sowing the seed of uprighteousness, by unceasing effort and rigid frugality, the harvest, though sometimes tardy, will be sure to produce an hundred fold in Christian virtues and material prosperity. The latter is ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... of the few genuine utterances of Lao Tzu which have survived the wreck of time, we find an allusion to a spiritual world. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say exactly what the passage means. According to Han Fei (died B.C. 233), who wrote several chapters to elucidate the sayings of Lao Tzu, the ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... was, in spirit, in sackcloth and ashes. He attributed the existence of the feud to his indiscretion and guilt, and reproached himself with all its pernicious consequences. He saw in the wreck before him the fruits of his sin; Bertha's misery and madness seemed wholly his own unhallowed work. The strong man shuddered at the consequences of his folly, and beat his breast, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... To the Pierce type of disposition, anger is a spur. Kathleen's large green car increased its accustomed twenty-miles-an-hour pace, from which the police of the business section thoughtfully averted their faces, to something nearer twenty-five. Three days after the wreck of the apple ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the workers go forward by actual work, not on manipulation of stocks, bonds, laws and schemes to wreck or boost for temporary ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... Like thyself, when tempest driven, By passion hurl'd, Would wreck the world, And mock ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... down his book, began one of those strange exhortations in the manner of his sect. Slow at first, full of unutterable pity. There was room for pity. Pointing to the human brute crouching there, made once in the image of God,—the saddest wreck on His green foot-stool: to the great stealthy body, the revengeful jaws, the foreboding eyes. Soul, brains,—a man, wifeless, homeless, nationless, hawked, flung from trader to trader for a handful of dirty shinplasters. "Lord God of hosts," cried the man, lifting up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... now to himself but like a distant, unformed sound? All our collectors, whilst smiling in triumph over the pearls which they have brought up and borne to the shore, lament the multitude of precious things irrecoverably buried in the depths of oblivion. Where, for instance, amid the similar wreck which has befallen so many others, are now the ancient words pouring forth the dirge over the "Flowers of the Forest," or those describing the tragic horrors on the "Braes of Yarrow," or those celebrating the wondrous attractions of the "Braw Lads o' Gala Water"? We have but the two first lines—the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... clear indication of Lincoln's will to direct affairs, and even to Seward would have been sufficient had he not, momentarily, been so disturbed by the wreck of his pacific policy toward the South, and as yet so ignorant of the strength of Lincoln's quiet persistence. As it was, he yielded on the immediate issue, the relief of Sumter (though attempting to divert reinforcements to another quarter) but did not as yet wholly ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... second day, fighting harder, they are defeated again, and so disastrously that the Venetian Doge takes no precautions against them on the third day, thinking them utterly disabled. Guiscard attacks him again on the third day, with the mere wreck of his own ships, and defeats the tired ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... be," said he, "with only one balloon? The second balloon is like the life-boat to a ship; in case of wreck we could always take to ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... before her face and sank back upon the pillows, sobbing. Simon shook his head and heaved a deep sigh. "It is not that," murmured he; "it is not from that, doctor! The thing is, that Jeanne Marie has no work and no exercise, and that she is going to wreck, because we are compelled to live here as kings and aristocrats used to live, without labor and occupation, and without doing any more than to nurse our fancies. We shall all die of this, ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... that much for himself. He hoped it was going to be the painter's mother or somebody's wife,—a person he ought to know about. But the pictures which appeal to him most surely are those which tell some little story,—"The Lovers," "The Boy leaving Home," "The Wreck." Here the subject, touching some one of the big human emotions, to which no man is wholly insensible, calls out the response of immediate interest and sympathy. It is something which ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... of water, one should know that not only must she pick her intricate way through snags and blind reefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brush the overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must pass almost within arm's reach of a sunken and visible wreck that would snatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and destroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steamboat and cargo in five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... resting from their labors and listening to the concert, which it was customary for a band to give each evening. As the last strains of music were being delivered, one side of the barber shop was lifted high and then suddenly dropped; it came down with a crash making a wreck of the building and its contents, except the barbers, who escaped unhurt, but who never made their appearance again. The episode resulted in the issuing of an order forbidding discrimination on account ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... son for me," he went on, with a bland smile, which made his face all the more hideous. "You're not so rough and clumsy as that confounded John Thomas, whose hands are like brickbats. I'm a mere wreck, as you see; it's the accursed climate! But your mother will soon nurse me into health again; she was always a good nurse, poor soul! it was her best point. What with you and your mother, I shall soon be ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... that was to dethrone her she took to reading the papers, and one day she read of a disastrous wreck, the Carbrea Castle—only seven saved out of a crew of twenty-three. She read the details carefully, and two days afterward she received a letter written by a shipmate of Mr. Gosport's, in a handwriting not very unlike her own, relating ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... the spoils of the vanquished. The Patriarch lived on the labor of women and slaves. All down the ages, from frank piracy and robbery to the measured toll of tribute, ransom and indemnity, we see the same natural instinct of the hunter and fighter. In his hands the government is a thing to sap and wreck, to live on. It is his essential impulse to want something very much; to struggle and fight for it; to take all he ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... "She will need a new propellor and her running gear is crumpled up badly, but I doubt very much if the planes are damaged, and I don't see that the engine has suffered." Park's critical eye ran over the wreck and he nodded. Without further comment he jumped into his car. As it started away he said: "Don't bother with the old girl any further. I will send a gang out to tend to her. I will see if a ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... This gale has not been heavy enough to wreck any vessel of ordinary strength, so that I cannot believe she has foundered. Captain Mazagan is working for his little twenty thousand dollars' reward; and if he has followed us up here with the intention of picking you up on the cruise, I don't believe he would ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... a great cry, bitter and strong, The misty moon looked out! And the water swarmed with seamen's heads, And the wreck was ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... to do with the Ambassador, or with diplomatic matters of any sort?" he protested. "I am here on business, to see what can be saved from the wreck of my affairs. Monsieur the Ambassador ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hand awtrocities. Angus swears the second one rocked the dug out so his mess kit slid right offen the table. Things quieted down after that so we went out finally to see if we could pick up any soovenirs out of the wreck. ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... yet nought had happened to signify that things would shape the course by me so ardently desired; that the means would be afforded me of mending my miserable ways, and repairing the wreck my life had suffered on the shoals of Fate. True, I had been housed and fed, and the comforts of indolence had been mine; but, for the rest, I was still clothed in the livery of folly which I had worn on ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... were beasts at the Manor. Had you forced from him an expression approaching, let us say, definiteness, he would have admitted that beasts lurked in every house, in every school in the kingdom. You must keep out of their way (and ways)—that was all. And he knew also that too many beasts wreck a house, as they wreck a regiment or ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Timor Laut. Meet Proas. Chief Lomba. Traces of the Crew of the Charles Eaton. Their account of the wreck and sojourn on the Island. Captain King's account of the Rescue of the Survivors. Boy Ireland's relation of the sufferings and massacre of the Crew. Appearance of the shores of Timor Laut. Description of the Inhabitants. Dress. Leprosy. Canoes. Village ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... life is more important than the choosing of friends. Many young people wreck all by wrong choices, taking into their life those who by their influence drag them down. Many a man's moral failure dates from the day he chose a wrong friend. Many a woman's life of sorrow or evil began with the letting into ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... persuade myself to give it to the fire, either. Let it lie hid, then, till all of us concerned in it are passed away; and perchance it may serve to instruct some future reader how much a transient vanity and wilfulness may wreck, and how much a steadfast love and ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... chance that a boat could live a minute in such a sea—it was, however, better to trust to her than stay on board the ship, against which the waves were dashing so furiously, that we expected her every moment to go to pieces, when we should all be cast into the foaming waters, with the pieces of wreck dashing around us, and coming down upon ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... again upon her world, smiling, triumphant, prettier than ever, since she had begun to make up a little more. Or, as a woman who had passed through the Valley of the Shadow, with only her own rod and staff of vanity and pride to comfort her, she would emerge from that seclusion a nervous wreck, and take to pegging or chloral or spiritualism. Most rarely she would not emerge at all, and then her women friends would send wreaths for the coffin and carriages to the funeral, and would whisper mysteriously together in their boudoirs, and look ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... grieved and shocked, Ida," he began, "to hear from your cousin so deplorable an account of your conduct. I am not so unwise as to look for gratitude in this world, but I did not think you would repay our kindness and consideration by attempting to wreck the happiness of a quiet and godly home. Of course, I make all allowances for your bringing-up; I am aware that in the state of life from which we rescued you, the spiritual and the religious were entirely absent; but I had hopes that ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... up close to centre door.) Let me understand you. You are going to this husband with a lie that will wreck his faith in his wife, that will wreck his faith in his best friend, unless I give you a ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... English colony at the Cape. He inquired at once respecting Harry Grant and the BRITANNIA, and found the names entirely unknown. The Tristan d'Acunha Isles are out of the route of ships, and consequently little frequented. Since the wreck of the Blendon Hall in 1821, on the rocks of Inaccessible Island, two vessels have stranded on the chief island—the PRIMANGUET in 1845, and the three-mast American, PHILADELPHIA, in 1857. These three events comprise the whole catalogue of maritime disasters ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... with his own hands," that he might "minister to his own necessities," and those of his family. But from the time of his release he regarded his ministerial work as the chief work of his life. "When he came abroad," says one who knew him, "he found his temporal affairs were gone to wreck, and he had as to them to begin again as if he had newly come into the world. But yet he was not destitute of friends, who had all along supported him with necessaries and had been very good to his family, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... by short paddles, or a sail of palm-leaf matting when the wind is fair. Considerable nicety is also shown in the making of fishing lines and hooks. The former are made from the fibres of a species of climber very neatly twisted. The fish-hooks are made of tortoise-shell, or nails procured from wreck timber. They are without barbs, and our fish-hooks are eagerly sought for in ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... position you cannot occupy," he said. "You have the perfect gift in private life, and you have a public gift. You have a genius for ruling. Say, my dear, don't wreck it all. I know you are not for me, but there are better men in the country than I am. Hartzman will be a great man one day—he wants you. Young Tilden wants you; he has millions, and he will never disgrace them or ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... did happen in there! Oh, poor me! I feel faint. Oh, for some water! I'm a wreck, I'm all done up. My head's splitting, and I can't hear or see right, either. There isn't a wretcheder woman on earth, or one that could ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... he never forgot that sultry evening, with the close, noisome atmosphere of the hot mission-hall, and the confused buzzing of many voices, which after a short silence began to hum in his ears. The drunkard was still standing in the doorway, the very wreck and ruin of a man; and every detail of his loathsome, degraded appearance was burnt in on Felix's brain. He felt stupefied and bewildered—as if he had received almost a death-blow. But in his inmost soul a cry went up to heaven, "Lord, Thou ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... as passive as a babe. Led toward him by her religious nature, attracted and held by his intellectual power and the graces of his language, yielding to him her confidence, it is not strange that, before she is aware, she is a captive without a captor, a victim without an enemy, a wreck without a destroyer. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... his prejudices and understood his humours; and nothing could make him into a serious Democrat or reformer. Even after Palmerston's death, Bright's chief opponent was to be found in the Whig ranks, in Robert Lowe, who was a master of parliamentary eloquence and who managed, in 1866, to wreck Lord John Russell's Reform Bill in the House. But Bright had his revenge in the country. Such meetings as ensued in the great provincial towns had not been seen for twenty years: the middle class and the artisans ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... disappearing with the growing security of national independence. People could afford the luxuries of liberty and party strife when their national existence was placed beyond the reach of danger; and a national demand for a greater share of self- government, which was to wreck the House of Stuart, was making itself heard before, on March 24, 1603, the last sovereign of the line which had made England a ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... Tarsus was not best Longer for him to make his rest. He, doing so, put forth to seas, Where when men been, there's seldom ease; For now the wind begins to blow; Thunder above and deeps below Make such unquiet, that the ship Should house him safe is wreck'd and split; And he, good prince, having all lost, By waves from coast to coast is tost: All perishen of man, of pelf, Ne aught escapen but himself; Till fortune, tired with doing bad, Threw him ashore, to give him glad: And here he comes. What shall be next, Pardon old Gower, — ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... proposed a sail on the Nile, but as soon as his enemies heard that he was coming, they changed themselves into crocodiles and hippopotami, so that they might be able to wreck his boat and devour him. As the boat of the god approached them they opened their jaws to crush it, but Horus and his followers came quickly on the scene, and defeated their purpose. The followers of Horus here mentioned are called in the text "Mesniu," ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... herself thoroughly frightened, strove with all her might to convince Ruth that she had nothing to fear. She knew the girl's intense, high-strung nature, and feared that constant worry, ceaseless anxiety, might readily so work upon her as to reduce her to a nervous wreck long before the expiration of the thirty days named in the first threatening letter. She found herself wishing devoutly ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... once seized upon my fancy, greatly excited it, and I lost myself forthwith in revery. "If ever island were enchanted," said I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?—or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God, little by little, their existence, as ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... nativity—but for the pen! Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink, Still thou mayst live, avoiding pen and ink. I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain, For treason botch'd in rhyme will be thy bane; Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck, 'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck: Why should thy metre good king David blast? A psalm of his will surely be thy last. Dar'st thou presume in verse to meet thy foes, 490 Thou whom the penny pamphlet foil'd in prose? Doeg, whom God for mankind's mirth has ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... youngsters need you, and know it, no matter what their fool fathers and mothers say. And you mustn't wreck your chances. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... poet; the natural result of it also has frequently been pointed out, and sufficiently bewailed. This man was one of the many who navigate the ocean of life with 'more sail than ballast;' his voyage contradicted every rule of seamanship, and necessarily ended in a wreck. ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... in a corner, elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. Seeing thus the wreck he had caused, Skippy began to be troubled by his conscience. Suppose it really was a serious affair. Wouldn't it be nobler to surrender the fictitious conquest to his beloved friend, to adopt a sacrificial attitude and allow Snorky to go in ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... examination, or that the prison authorities should not let the prisoner have an interview with a legal adviser; but the landlord did much more. While Pat Ring was in jail, the landlord sent and made a wreck of his house and farm; took the roof, thatch, and wood off the barn, stable, and dwelling-house, save in one small portion of the latter; and every handful of the thatch and wood so pulled down was carried away to the landlord's own premises. The doors and windows he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... my precious melons!" she cried in grief. "Someone has eaten them all up!" Throwing herself flat amid the wreck, she sobbed as if her heart would break, so overwhelmed by her loss that it never occurred to her to report the disaster to the rest of the family. ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... number of our months are with God; "though He hath appointed the bounds that He cannot pass, yet He will hide us in the grave; He will keep us secret until His wrath upon the ungodly is past." We read, however, His power to redeem and deliver His elect, even amid the wreck and ruin of years and the gloom of the grave, for Christ is the ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... that cripple who is drawn about in a wheel-chair?" Cecil asked. "We saw him to-day, only for a moment, for he drew his cloak over his face as we passed. I never saw such a melancholy wreck, and I pitied him so much that I ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... for his feeble will, and it cited therewith, as partial justification for his conduct, his tender love for his mother and his firm intention of keeping forever inviolable his promises to her. It voiced his passionate prayers for light, and his dim hopes for the future, while portraying the wreck of a life whose elements had been too complex for him to sift and classify and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Mrs. Marston, when he took those three blue lights ashore from the wreck of the Lupetea, that they might come in useful some night——" and then he uttered a yell of delight as a great rocket shot high up in air and burst; the ship had seen the blue light ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... devils, what gets throwed up here! But I know where ther's some fine copper bolts waiting for me. I'll hae 'em! I've had some on 'em, an' I'll hae the rest when they rots out o' the timbers. Year '63 that wreck was—lovely vessel, loaded wi' corn. I mind ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... is good to me!" he cried 'Mid life's wild wreck as close he grasped The scattered fragments to his side Of millions lost that once he clasped: And with a peace and thankfulness He never knew when Fortune smiled, He put behind him all distress And laughed as lightly as ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... came panting up the steep, and bent down before her. 'Fish for thy net, when the wind is foul? I have a little reed-pipe, and when I blow on it the mullet come sailing into the bay. But it has a price, pretty boy, it has a price. What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack? A storm to wreck the ships, and wash the chests of rich treasure ashore? I have more storms than the wind has, for I serve one who is stronger than the wind, and with a sieve and a pail of water I can send the great galleys to the bottom of the sea. But I have a price, pretty boy, I have a price. What d'ye lack? ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... weeds blotted the very memory of the trail into oblivion; when they stood before an old grey mansion, with what had once been lawns about it and the ruin of a great cedar hard by its side, its many windows surveying with a grave stare the wreck and riot of the court it kept—then for the first time Anthony Lyveden heard the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates |
