"Collapse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "contagion." For my own part, without referring to events out of Europe, I have been long quite familiar, and I know several others who are equally so, with cholera, in which a perfect similarity to the symptoms of the Indian or Russian cholera has existed: the collapse—the deadly coldness with a clammy skin—the irritability of the stomach, and prodigious discharge from the bowels of an opaque serous fluid (untinged with bile in the slightest degree)—with a corresponding shrinking of flesh and integuments—the ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... Verdun heights remained impregnable. The whole line turned and fought where it stood. The enemy, worn out by his exertions, stretched his line of communications to breaking-point, and it was said that his supplies of food and munitions had come temporarily very near to collapse. The Allies checked him. He could not even hold his own. In two days he was moving back, away ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... the necklace, there would come over his face a look of weakness which betrayed the want of real inner strength. How many faces one sees which, in ordinary circumstances, are comfortable, self-asserting, sufficient, and even bold; the lines of which, under difficulties, collapse and become mean, spiritless, and insignificant. There are faces which, in their usual form, seem to bluster with prosperity, but which the loss of a dozen points at whist will reduce to that currish aspect which reminds one of a ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... edifice was known as the Olympic. When I knew this theatre first, it had fallen into a state of seemingly hopeless decadence. Nobody succeeded there. To lease the Olympic Theatre was to court bankruptcy and invite collapse. The charming Vestris had been its tenant for a while. There Liston and Wrench had delighted the town with their most excellent fooling. There many of Planche's most sparkling burlesques had been produced. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... thereabouts) to 479 or perhaps a few years later. Much had happened between the death of Ausonius and his birth. The lights were going out all over Europe. Barbarian kingdoms had been planted in Gaul and Spain, Rome herself had been sacked by the Goths; and in his lifetime the collapse went on, ever more swiftly. He was a young man of twenty when the ultimate horror broke upon the West, the inroad of Attila and the Huns. That passed away, but when he was twenty-four the Vandals sacked Rome. He saw the terrible German king-maker Ricimer throne and unthrone a series of ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... Italian writer already quoted, a fair critic, though Spanish in his leanings, enumerates among the circumstances most creditable to the direction of the war by the Navy Department the perception that "blockade must inevitably cause collapse, given the conditions of insurrection and of exhaustion already existing in ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... evident that the frosted appearance of the surface is due to the withdrawal of the fluid portion from a mat of crystals of purer tin which have been for some time solid and a contraction of the mass. The shrinking of the last part to become solid is further shown by the collapse of the surface of the ingot where weakest; that is, a furrow is formed on the flat surface. In other cases of fused metal there is expansion instead of contraction in this final stage of the solidification, and the enriched alloy then causes the upper face of the ingot to bulge ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... relieved us of some weight. The Base Camp was reached at half-past twelve. One of the first things Tucker did on returning was to weigh all the packs. To my surprise and disgust I learned that on the way down Tucker, afraid that some of us would collapse, had carried sixty-one pounds, and Gamarra sixty-four, while he had given me only thirty-one pounds, and the same to Coello. This, of course, does not include the weight of our ice-creepers, axes, ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... Wellington's campaigns who had marched down from Canada with every promise of crushing American resistance. This was the last and most formidable attempt on the part of the enemy to conquer territory and to wrest a decision by means of a sustained offensive. Its collapse marked the beginning of the end, and such events as the capture of Washington and the battle of New Orleans were ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... of a whipped child, of a poor creature terrified and in despair, and expressed not anger but entire collapse. She was so wan, so sad-looking, that neither Lissac nor Vaudrey dared speak. A chill silence fell ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... in regard to the breathing, than to instruct a student against going wrong. The speaker should have a settled feeling of sufficiency; he should hold himself well together, physically and morally, avoiding nervous agitation and physical collapse; he should allow the breath freedom rather than put it under unnatural constraint. Perfect breathing can only be known by certain qualities in the voice. When it is best, the process is least observed. The student learns the method of breathing ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Mr. Merrick. "Her whole nervous system has given way; all the ordinary functions of her brain are in a state of collapse. I can give you no plainer explanation than that of the nature of the malady. The fever which frightens the people of the house is merely the effect. The cause is what I have told you. She may lie on that bed ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... ought to see that," said Monsieur. He was a man of quiet manners, not over-social, who had once enjoyed a handsome business income, but had early—about the time of his marriage—been made poor through the partial collapse of the house in Havre whose cotton-buyer he had been, and, in a scant way, still was. "When a cotton-buyer geds down, he stays," was all the explanation he ever gave us. He had unfretfully let adversity cage him for life in the only occupation ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... for long distances among his suffering men. If we picture him standing at Krasnoi, weighing how long he dared to brave an enemy which if consolidated and hurled upon his lines would have annihilated them, we must feel that collapse was prevented then only by his nerve and by the terror of his name. Once more he threw the influence of his presence into the scale, and, stepping before the guard on this dreadful day, he said simply: "You ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... window and raised the blind half way. I examined the old man attentively. There was no doubt about the curious pallor of his skin. It was like the pallor of extreme collapse, save for the presence of a faint colour in his cheeks which seemed to lie as a bright transparency over a dead background. My fingers again sought his pulse. It was full and steady. As I counted it my eyes rested ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... at the fork, they saw a round body covered with fire—the size of a man's head—appear very suddenly, then seem to collapse and fall back. This, five or six times; then a similar ball leapt into the air and fell on the grass, where after a moment it lay still. The Bishop went as near as he dared to it, and saw—what but the remains of an enormous spider, veinous and seared! And, as the fire burned lower down, ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... her hand to the count; she turned her head aside, feigning inattention; but she pressed his fingers firmly three or four times as if to inspire him with courage, for indeed the poor man was in want of it. He was so nervous and trembling that Amalia thought that he would collapse entirely. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... He felt instinctively that he had stumbled upon a man of value and service. But he listened carelessly. As yet the scene was more absorbing than its details. The local politik boiling beneath the collapse of the empire had not yet struck his imagination. There were large lines to ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... collapse," he said gravely. "Mrs. Dott is worn out, physically and mentally. She must be kept quiet, she must not worry about anything, she must remain in bed, and she must see no one. If she does this, if she rests—really rests—we may fight off nervous prostration. If she does not—anything may ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the platform wall, realizing that in diverse ways my guru was trying to convey to me the devastating news. Seething with rebellion, my soul was like a volcano. By the time I reached the Puri hermitage I was nearing collapse. The inner voice was tenderly ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... he gaped as one who beholds the collapse of high towering walls. It was his system of life, of motives calculated, of humanity weighed. It was the whole fabric of hate and passions which quivered and crashed and flattened in a chaos of dust before his wildly ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Paine was at one time desperately ill. It was said that the collapse was partly due to his too sudden abstinence from stimulants. He was an old man then, and had lived with every ounce of energy that was in him. The stimulants were resumed, and he grew somewhat better. This naturally brings us to the question ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... The phenomenal growth and collapse of the Knights of Labor is one of the outstanding events in American economic history. The membership in 1869 consisted of eleven tailors. This small beginning grew into the famous Assembly No. 1. Soon ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... straw. A collapse forthwith occurred. In the scramble for shares in the few remaining funds every one gained something, except the author, who was to have received L12 for each performance for the first twenty-five ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort to bring ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... during the day, he watched at her bedside during the greater part of the night, and if it had not been for Teresa, who compelled him to go and take some rest, he would have, undoubtedly, suffered a collapse himself. How long those days appeared to be in spite of the happy companionship that I had found with my dear cousin Paula! My father hardly noticed us, absorbed as he was with the fear that filled his heart, and Teresa was occupied ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... the day have been of such a momentous nature that it is not strange that Ethel should collapse. She has sustained the shock of her father's murder; the visitation of the citizens, bent on vengeance; then the unexpected appearance of ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... harness, and had no longer the stimulus of the daily demand and habit of work, the collapse was such that I thought I was dying. I gave my share of the paper to Durand, to do as he pleased with, and went off to North Conway, in the mountains of New Hampshire, to paint one more picture before I died. I chose a brook scene, and Huntington and Hubbard—two of ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... the term to be applied to the second Miss Purcell's retreat, and it says a good deal for the Inspector's mental collapse that he saw nothing ludicrous in her retreating back, clad as it was in his own covert coat, with a blanket like the garment of an Indian brave trailing beneath it. Nora tore open a door near the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... sense of release. His enemy had relaxed his bear-like clasp. Gaston sprang to his feet to see his enemy falling backwards in a helpless collapse, the hilt of a dagger clasped between his knotted hands — the sharp blade buried ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... stand at this important period in the history of Scotland will be found the true grounds of the local rancour which afterwards prevailed between Mackenzie and the Island Lord, and which only terminated in the collapse of the Earls of Ross and the Lords of the Isles, upon the ruins of which, as a reward for proved loyalty to the reigning monarch, and as the result of the characteristic prudence of the race of MacKenneth, the House of Kintail gradually rose in ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... should show James at this point falling backwards with his feet together and his eyes shut, with a semi-circular dotted line marking the progress of his flight and a few stars above his head to indicate moral collapse. There are no words that can adequately describe the sheer, black horror that froze the blood in his veins as this ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... and consider that our sub had only to get a downward inclination of ever so little while running hooked-up under water, and in no time she would be below her lowest safety depth of 200 feet, where the pressure is 7 tons to every square foot of her hull. And should she collapse there would be no preliminary small leak by way of warning. She would go as an egg-shell goes when you crush it in your palm. Plack!—like that—and it would be all over. Above this same middle compartment, the ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... furnishes in itself abundant proof of the practicability of proportional representation. In every country in which the new methods have been introduced fears were expressed that it would be impossible for the average elector to fulfil the new duties required of him, and that returning officers would collapse under the weight of their new responsibilities. The same apprehension still exists in England, and it may therefore be desirable to refer in greater detail to the experience of those countries in which the new methods have been put to ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... of his disappearance was one of collapse for Helen. Frozen with horror, she had been unable to move or feel or think. All at once she was a quivering mass of cold, helpless flesh, wet with perspiration, sick with a shuddering, retching, internal convulsion, her mind liberated from paralyzing shock. The moment ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... space shut in by the white wilderness. And as the slow days went by, the low log house seemed to be filled more and more with smothered and conflicting emotions. A dozen times the whole extravaganza came near collapse; a dozen times Hugh saved it by a word, or Pete and Bella by a silence. Their parts were not easy, and although Pete still smiled, his young clear face grew whiter and more strained. Sylvie treated him always as though he were a child. She would pat his head and rumple his hair ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... seen to go down, apparently with his machine out of control, after a fusillade of Boche bullets. This much Du Boise had said before his collapse. As to what the fallen aviator's real fate was, time alone ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... Sunday-school teachers waltzed together until the long room shook, and the very bunting on the walls waved and fluttered with the gyrations of those religious dervishes. Nobody knew—nobody cared how long this frenzy lasted—it ceased only with the collapse of the musicians. Then, with much vague bewilderment, inward trepidation, awkward and incoherent partings, everybody went dazedly home; there was no other dancing after that—the waltz was the one event of the festival and of the history of Santa Ana. ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... brother was released, he seemed to collapse for a moment, and fell face downwards upon the ground, a quiver running through all his limbs, such as Humphrey had seen many a time in some wild creature stricken with its ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... not treated a case of cholera; but my own impression of it is, that in the first stage, or during the "rice-water" discharges, the condition of the system is, as in other acute affections, excessively positive; but that, as the collapse comes on, it rapidly subsides into an intensely negative state, thus assuming the chief characteristic of a ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... returned from May Myo she had half expected her aunt to meet her at the station, and was much concerned to discover, when she arrived home, that Mrs. Krauss had suffered a serious collapse, had not been out of the house for weeks, but was confined to her own apartments, nursed and attended by the ever-faithful Lily. Her condition seemed as serious as when Sophy had arrived from England, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... cells is taking place. And in addition there is that activity of them all in their togetherness, that activity which keeps the cells together, and which if relaxed for a moment would mean that the cells would all collapse as the grains of dust in an eddying dust-devil at a street corner collapse once the gust of wind which stirred them and keeps them together drops away. What must be the intensity of life required to develop the tree from the seed and to rear that giant straight up from ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... it spirits?" said the youth, throwing himself back against his companion. His eyes closed on his smeared cheeks; his jaw fell; his whole frame seemed to sink into collapse; those gazing at him saw, as it were, the dislocation ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... exclude the cases in which excitement, instead of collapse, is induced, and, in general, cases complicated with disorder of the head or chest, it appears that the inhalation of ether is not attended with questionable or injurious consequences; and that it places the patient in a condition in which the performance of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... as may be practicable. "Napoleon le Petit" and the "Histoire d'un Crime" are works but little worthy of his genius. Political animosities, sharpened by personal grievances, have in many cases an immense immediate effect in literature, but they pay for this easy success by speedy collapse; and scarcely even the magnificent rhetoric and splendid vituperation of "Les Chatiments" will keep them living when the world has forgotten the lesser Napoleon, as it already begins to do. His patriotic fury, the impassioned utterances of his exile, the tremendous ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... to face with the real Madame Desvarennes; and no politeness held good on her part when it was a question of business. From his first words, she had found a weak point in the plan, and had attacked him with such plainness that the financier, seeing his enterprise collapse at the sound of the mistress's voice-like the walls of Jericho at the sound of the Jewish trumpets—had beaten a retreat, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... distress yourself, you will be quite well enough to leave to-morrow," the doctor said to him many times. "I expected this momentary collapse. It is nothing." ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... remained away from Dublin for about eight years, on leave frequently extended, writing in London, and traveling, teaching, and writing on the Continent. On his return from his foreign travels in 1720 or 1721, he found society completely demoralized by the collapse of the South Sea bubble. He was much depressed by the conditions around him, and sought to awaken the moral sense of the people by 'An Essay toward Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain.' Returning to Dublin and resuming college ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that happens, and on a calm and dispassionate survey the world does appear mainly to one as a scene of miracles. Out of Germany's strength, in whose purpose so many people refused to believe, came Poland's opportunity, in which nobody could have been expected to believe. Out of Russia's collapse emerged that forbidden thing, the Polish independence, not as a vengeful figure, the retributive shadow of the crime, but as something much more solid and more difficult to get rid of—a political necessity and a moral solution. Directly it appeared its practical usefulness ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... shredded end, he blew it deftly until the solid wood was aflame, and by the light of it he could see that Archer was ghastly pale and almost on the point of collapse. Their dank, unwholesome refuge seemed the more ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... three or four days," was the firm reply. "The chances are that he would collapse on the road. But as soon as ever the thing is possible you shall be relieved of him. I can easily find accommodation for him at Pengarth. At present he is suffering from very severe concussion. I hope there is not actual brain lesion—but there may be. And, if so, to move him now would be simply ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had locked himself up in his room, and had not been seen since. He had a loaded revolver with him; through the closed door he had threatened to shoot both her and the children. The servants had deserted, panic-stricken at their master's behaviour, at the sudden collapse of the well-regulated household: the last, a nurse-girl sent out on an errand some hours previously, had not returned. Sarah was at her wits' end to know what to do with the children—he might hear them screaming at ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the remainder of the crew in hopeless confusion, and he himself was rescued with difficulty in a half-drowned state of collapse by the Umpire's boat. Yet for some occult reason no feat of gallantry in action would have won him such universal commendation on the Lower-deck. "Nobby Clark—'im as jumped overboard in the Bandsmen's Race" was thereafter his ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... thirteenth century. There was record neither of its glory nor of its decline, nor of what manner of folk worshipped there, nor of those who destroyed it. The roofless haunt of bats and owls, preserved from complete collapse by the ancient ivy that covered its walls, the mortar between its stones the prey of briers, its floor a nettle bed, the chapel remained a mystery. Yet over the arch of the west door the two Maries gazed heavenward as they had gazed for six hundred ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... a state of collapse, sagged back against an oak tree. Quintana's nervous grasp fell from his ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... it throbbed the most with apprehension when the enemy, Man, was the objective of her most resolute attack. She knew that she must keep moving; that she must not stop or pause; or her whole resolution must collapse. And so she hurried on, fearful lest a chance meeting with any one might ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... trembling against the wall, nearer to collapse than she had ever been before. But the momentary respite had its effect, and instinctively she began to gather herself together for fresh effort. He had wrested her deliverance from her, but she would never accept what he offered in exchange. She would never escape with his ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... must have struck some part of the motor, and done enough damage to make its workings exceedingly erratic. If such were the case, would it be wise for them to try to push on at this high altitude, where a sudden collapse would mean death for both of the occupants of the ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... wars between European powers, prepared and organized to accept the old conventions, bloody, vast, distressful encounters that may still leave the art of war essentially unmodified, but sooner or later—it may be in the improvised struggle that follows the collapse of some one of these huge, witless, fighting forces—the new sort of soldier will emerge, a sober, considerate, engineering man—no more of a gentleman than the man subordinated to him or any other ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... wanted to appear, and persuaded many; but the lie hath been beyond my power. On it do I collapse. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the doctors were alone in Bascom's room, and then Doctor Field called Maxwell in and quietly informed him that the warden had lost so much blood from the wound in the wrist that there was danger of immediate collapse unless they resorted to extreme measures, and bled some one to supply the patient. ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... all come to Washington county to occupy the land allotted to them, for some remained where they had settled after the collapse of Captain Campbell's scheme, but those who did settle in Argyle were related either by blood, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... to the commodious sitting-room. He was mildly interested in the news about Stay, for the man had been a disappointment. This criminal, whose love for Thornton Lyne had, as Tarling suspected rightly, been responsible for his mental collapse, might have supplied a great deal of information as to the events which led up to the day of the murder, and his dramatic breakdown had removed a witness who might have offered ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... suggestion, or collateral notice, he not only narrowed his own field, but he grievously injured the final impression. For when men's minds are purely passive, when they are not allowed to re-act, then it is that they collapse most, and that their sense of what is said must ever be feeblest. Doubtless there must have been great conversational masters elsewhere, and at many periods; but in this lay Coleridge's characteristic advantage, that he was a great natural power, and also a great artist. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... employers was satisfactory, the effect upon the girls was remarkable and exceeded expectations. During that Christmas week, the clerks were tired, of course, but they were not in the state of exhaustion, collapse, and physical and nervous depletion, which they had experienced in previous years. This bodily salvation had been expected. It was what organized women had pleaded for and bargained for, what the defending lawyers, Mr. Louis D. Brandeis and Mr. William J. ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... that return would take place. Weeks before, at Cadiz, the last act of a prolonged tragedy had been performed. Still firmly refusing to forsake his post till a competent successor had been appointed, Collingwood did not surrender his command to Rear Admiral Martin till March 3rd, when a complete collapse of strength made this imperative. Two days subsequently were lost in the vain endeavour to leave port in the teeth of a contrary wind, but on March 6th, the Ville de Paris succeeded in setting sail ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... afternoon the men would sit bucking away in their tents, and refuse to adapt themselves to the idea of a siesta. Moreover, the Tommy is obstinate by nature and does not like to give in. He goes on marching in the sun, even though he feels bad, and the collapse is swift ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... spilt milk, but with good courage and the old enthusiasm that never failed him, he returned to the trade of authorship. He dug out half-finished articles and stories, finished them and sold them, and within a week after the Jones collapse he was at work on a novel based an the old Sellers idea, which eight years before he and Howells had worked into a play. The brief letter in which he reported this news to Howells bears no marks of depression, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... consoled among them, remaining seven days.' The centurion could scarcely delay his march to please the Christians at Puteoli; and the thought that the Apostle, whose spirit had never flagged while danger was near and effort was needed, felt some tendency to collapse, and required cheering when the strain was off, is as natural as ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... intellectual abasement. The hatred and scorn were fanned by a tribe of scribblers, who heaped distortion on the history and practices of the Jewish people. On the other hand, the proselytes to Judaism, "the fearers of God," who accepted part of its teaching—and in the utter collapse of pagan religion and morality they were many—desired to know something of the past grandeur of the nation, and doubtless were anxious to justify themselves to those who regarded their adoption of Jewish customs as an utter degradation. For those who mocked at him as a renegade member of a wretched ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... all looked at one another without speaking. They sank down in collapse, feeling an icy coldness in their loins, and an overwhelming ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... began to walk up and down the room, frowning and biting his lips. From time to time he glanced at Beaumont-Greene. Seeing his utter collapse, he rang the bell, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... song approached its natural climax. Sometimes this was varied by a solitary dancer starting from the circle, and performing the wildest bacchanalian antics, to the vocal incitement of the rest. This only ended with physical exhaustion, or collapse from ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... begged. "I can assure you that without me the constitution of this country would collapse within ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... years Father Vianney suffered from violent pains which frequently compelled him to shorten his addresses in the pulpit and sometimes even caused him to collapse. If, on such occasions, he were questioned about his illness his only answer was: "Yes, I am suffering a little." Terrible indeed must have been his torture when we consider that his emaciated body, racked ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... Dowst, you take the near one. I'll take the far one. Dominico, you help as needed, but concentrate on cutting off their equipment. The first thing we must do is cut their communicators. Otherwise they'll warn the rest. Then turn off their air supplies and collapse their suits." ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... was ajar, his eyes staring, a fearful mask of a face; yet he clung in place. When he was stunned, instinct still kept his feet in the stirrups and taught him to give lightly to every jar. He fought hard but in time even Red Perris must collapse. ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... causes and necessity of war. Soon moral concepts began to be shaken. He learned that prostitution might be regarded as an economic evil. He found that sex morality was regarded by some as a useful taboo; psychology taught him that repression could be as harmful as excess; the collapse of the Darwinian optimists, who believed that all curves were upward, left him with the inner conviction that everything, including principle, was in a state of flux. And his intellectual guides, first Shaw, and then, when Shaw became ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... pushed this old limb of a tree across the stream ahead of me. Freeman was sinking out of sight when he got his hand on the bough. I was able to push him into water where he could get a footing, but I somehow lost my own hold on the wood and found myself sinking, utterly faint from a sort of collapse. There was a tree that had fallen into the stream a few yards below. I was just able to turn on my back and keep afloat until I could grasp the top branches of the tree. Then I crept out—I never knew how, for I was only half conscious. But I'll never forget ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... he compassed in memory all the seasons of passion from full bloom to withering since he saw her last. When he went away from her to fulfil his sentence, he had felt that identity with her a man must recognise for a wife passionately beloved. He had left her in a state of nervous collapse, an ignoble, querulous breakdown, due, he had to explain to himself, to her nature, delicately strung. There was nothing heroic about the way she had taken his downfall. But the exquisite music of her, he further tutored himself, was not set to martial ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... shot struck the sea beside us, sending a spout of water over our rail. Again Marah pulled his trigger-spring, the gun fell over on its side, and the cutter's mast seemed to collapse into itself as though it were wrapping itself up in its own canvas. A huge loose clue of sail—the foresail's starboard leach—flew up into the air; the boom swung after it; the gaff toppled over from above; we saw the topmast dive like ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... lean sides showing the undulating ribs with every movement. They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony frames, with strings for muscles—so lean that Henry found it in his mind to marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse forthright ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... delivers, and physical disease which it heals. So, in the Gospels, for instance, you find 'Thy faith hath made thee whole'—literally, 'saved thee' And you hear one of the Apostles crying, in an excess of terror and collapse of faith, 'Save! Master! we perish!' The two notions that are conveyed in our familiar expression 'safe and sound,' both lie in the word—deliverance from danger, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... these Noailles contrivances!)—"Furthermore, we learn, Noailles has seized a post twenty miles farther up the river (Miltenberg the name of it); and will prevent supplies from coming down to us out of Branken or the Neckar Country. We had forgotten, or our COLLAPSE of plans had done it, that 'an army moves on its stomach' (as the King of Prussia says), and that we have nothing to live upon ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of public appreciation of his work and recognition of his right to rank as America's greatest composer of music, MacDowell died to the world of men through a mental collapse brought on by over-work, and for two years, forgetting that there was such a thing as music, the great tone-poet dwelt in a soundless world. Sorrow for such a fate at the zenith of a career of so much promise ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... is exhaustion or collapse due to overheating where there is not sufficient evaporation from the surface of the body ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... it, unless—we shall win it, in spite of them. Naturally the diamond dealers don't want to be compelled to put up one hundred million dollars. They reason that if the stones I showed them came from new fields, and the supply is unlimited, as I told them, that the diamond market is on the verge of collapse, anyway; and as they look at it they are compelled to know where they came from. As a matter of fact, if they did know, or if the public got one inkling of the truth, the diamond market would be wrecked, ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... excitement. Chunky fastened a hand in the hair of his companion fetching away a handful. Ned retaliated by smiting Chunky on the nose. Then both grabbed hold of the tent wall as they slipped out from under it feet first. The tent swayed and threatened to collapse. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... division of the State, was settled when the Senate accepted as members the two men appointed by the said legislature; (2) as a matter of policy he urged that the people of Western Virginia should not be forced to run the risk of having the whole State, because of the collapse of the rebellion, repeal the act of the legislature and thereby continue a domination of tyranny over them. The vote was taken and the motion to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... was coming—"a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees," as it were, which betokened that the great day of freedom had come. Straggling soldiers, who had broken away from the Confederate Army, had a doleful story to tell of disaster and collapse. Then, besides, the inmates of the great house were thinking of how best they could secure their valuables if the invaders actually came. Then, on the first Sunday of April 1865, the catastrophe may be said to have ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... his lips. It was the work of an instant, and it all happened while Rex was crossing the room. Suddenly, as the doctor watched him, his eyes fixed themselves. In the next instant, he thought, their light would break; and the body he supported would collapse and fall back for ever. It was the last gasp. Then a ringing voice broke the silence, just as Rex had his hand upon the latch. 'I will, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... tell you what I feel at this complete collapse of all my hopes and plans. The one consideration of my child is all that restrains me from leaving my husband, never to see him again. As it is, I must live a life of deceit, and feign respect and regard for a man whom I ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... collapse of the Servian defense led, after some negotiations, to a truce, and diplomacy took up the matter, and in September I went home again. The "Times" correspondence had given the Montenegrin question serious importance in England, and during the winter I ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... bright ring to the planet. The rate of approach he estimated at about fifty-seven English miles a year, or 11,000 miles during the 194 years elapsed since the time of Huygens.[1110] Were it to continue, a collapse of the system must be far advanced within three centuries. But was the change real or illusory—a plausible, but deceptive inference from insecure data? M. Struve resolved to put it to the test. A set of elaborately careful micrometrical measures of the dimensions of Saturn's rings, executed ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... which the Union arms were operating. Geographically considered, there was but one line which the National armies could take and maintain, and that was unthought of and unknown, and could not have been found out, in all human probability, in time to have prevented a collapse, or warded off recognition and intervention, but for Miss Carroll. The failure to reduce Vicksburg from the water, after a tremendous sacrifice of life and treasure, and the time it took to take Richmond, furnish irrefragable proof of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and ran toward that ominous figure. She was prepared to fling herself upon that strong support which had never yet failed her. But, for once, no such support was forthcoming. Long before she reached her side Kate had stepped into the room and seemed to collapse into the rocker beside the dressing bureau. The brave Kate was reduced to a pitiful ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... flood, cataclysm steep, precipitous wonder, astonishment speed, velocity sparkle, scintillate stir, commotion stir, agitate strike, collide learned, erudite small, diminutive scare, terrify burn, combustion fire, conflagration fall, collapse uproot, eradicate skin, excoriate hate, abominate work, labor bright, brilliant hungry, famished eat, devour twisted, contorted thin, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... personally cognizant, within the limits of which he visits, and every member of which is to some extent in touch with the ideas and wishes of His Royal Highness. But for this central authority, Society in London would be in imminent danger of falling into the same chaos and collapse as the universe itself, were one of the great laws of nature to ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... strengthen and consolidate their power within the limits of their own territories, and a weak empire was perhaps better adapted for effecting this purpose than a stronger one, even though certain of their own order had a controlling voice in its administration. As already hinted, the collapse of the rebellious knighthood under Sickingen, a few weeks later, clearly showed the political drift of the situation in the ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... face could not have been so surprising. Beverley not only started, but recoiled as if from a sudden and deadly apparition. The step between supreme exhilaration and utter collapse is now and then infinitesimal. There are times, moreover, when an expression on the face of Hope makes her look like the twin sister of Despair. The moment falling just after Long-Hair spoke was a century condensed ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... and went to his wife. He found her in a state of collapse on the hearth-rug, and lifted her up gently. He had no intention of telling her of Barnby's mistake, or of uttering words of comfort. In the thousand and one recollections that surged through his brain touching ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... Rose-Marie had seen his bleary eyes pass, without a flicker of interest, over his wife's clean apron and freshly washed hair; had seen him throw his coat and his empty bottle into one of the newly dusted corners, had seen his collapse into a heap in the center of the room. And, last of all, as she had hurried away, with Jim's final insinuation ringing in her ears, she had known the fear that all was not well with Bennie—for Bennie came in every afternoon before she left. She ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... quickly. Now for Mary, after a life of gratified whims, to lose the very thing she wanted most of all—that for which she would willingly have given up every other desire her heart had ever coined—was a thought hardly to be endured. She felt that the world would surely collapse. It could not, would not, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... roof and walks about there or, without stumbling, goes into the open. In short, he carries out all sorts of complex actions. Only it would be dangerous to call the wanderer by name, for then he would not only waken where he was, but he would collapse frequently and fall headlong with fright if he found ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... support of his hand from his reclining head with a suddenness that, considering his languid attitude, seemed to menace his whole person with collapse. But, on the contrary, he sat up, extremely alert, behind the great writing-table on which his hand had fallen with the sound of ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... the "mugging" type, who had come off with flying colours in an elementary examination, showed signs of uneasiness as the advanced one approached. "Stick an observation into him," said Huxley. It was stuck, and acted like a stiletto, a jump into the air and utter collapse ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... uneasily, glancing suddenly and often at his watch. Asked as to the time, he looks into vacancy, again consults his watch, starts up, moves about, sits down, makes no reply, the neck relaxes, and the whole body droops in apparent collapse. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... an occasion, when left far behind, that one of the ungainly legs found its way into a badger hole. The collapse was harder and more complete than usual, and the little sufferer would have died there had he not been found by Dave and Irene in the course of their rides. Dave, after a moment's examination, drew his revolver, but Irene pled for the ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... separate squads were drifting the cattle, but in the third contingent we cut off too many beeves and came near drowning two fine ones. The animals in question were large and strong, but had stood for nearly an hour on a slippery ledge, frequently being crowded into the water, and were on the verge of collapse from nervous exhaustion. They were trembling like leaves when we pushed them off. Runt Pickett was detailed to look especially after those two, and the little rascal nursed and toyed and played with them like a circus ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... neck, but the brisk and significant air with which Griffin spoke roused her to herself again. She put Elinor's arms away, and going to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, and whisked away the telltale traces of her collapse, while Elinor sat quietly on the edge of the couch watching ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... Even if he had been wearing his overcoat, the blow would have hurt. As he was in his jacket it hurt more than anything he had ever experienced in his life. He leapt up with a yell, but Psmith was there before him. Mike saw his assailant lift the stick again, and then collapse as the old Etonian's right took him ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... itself," Geoffries agreed, with a fresh collapse into his old depression. "But it is the last straw. I'm cut pretty short by the home people, who don't understand, and there are other things—polo ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... Your own would have followed; and you would have come to me in a procession like the last time. But I give you warning—Stasie may weep and Henri ratiocinate—it will not serve you twice. Your next collapse will be fatal. I thought I had told you so, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... concerned us all have had to do with industry and labor and with respect to these, certain developments have taken place which I consider of importance. I am happy to report that after years of uncertainty, culminating in the collapse of the spring of 1933, we are bringing order out of the old chaos with a greater certainty of the employment of labor at a reasonable wage and of more business at a fair profit. These governmental and industrial developments hold promise of ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... sounds echoed back and forth until baffled away by the open area across the Plaza, where one large structure had already been destroyed. Three others were slated for collapse today. ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... had been tottering on the verge of collapse for some time here broke down completely. She clung to him hysterically and entreated him ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... viscera.—To diminish the bulk of the chest it has been found advisable to cut out the breastbone, remove the heart and lungs, and allow the ribs to collapse with the lower free ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... little perplexed and undecided about this singular request, but his generous nature and chivalry soon asserted itself. One single look at the emaciated and worn faces of our guests sufficiently substantiated the truth of their story, for both men were utterly exhausted and on the verge of collapse. The next minute messengers were flying to the different trenches of the battalion to solicit and collect contributions, and the officers scrambled over each other in their noble contest to deplete their own last ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... king, and in 1546 it was regarded as Charles's last hope in Somerset. Its resistance was stout; for 160 days Colonel Wyndham baffled the assaults of no less an adversary than Blake, and only surrendered on the total collapse of the Royal cause (p. 17). The grounds are entered under a gateway (Perp.), built by Sir H. Luttrell. The oldest part of the castle lies to the R. of this, flanked by two round towers (13th cent.), built by Reginald Mohun. (Note door and huge knocker, replacing original portcullis: ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... that Uncle Peter is spending all his time with Aunt Beulah," she wrote in her diary that evening. "It is beautiful of him to try to help her through this period of nervous collapse, and just like him, but I don't understand why it is that he doesn't come and tell me about it, especially since he is getting so tired. He ought to know that I love him so dearly and deeply that I could ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... mandarin nods under his purple umbrella. The rose in his hand shoots its petals up in thin quills of crimson. Then they collapse and shrivel like red embers. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... not trust my profane pen to report. There were, also, the ebbs and recoils from the other party,—the mortal unequal to converse with an immortal,—ingratitude, which was more truly incapacity, the collapse of overstrained affections and powers. At all events, it is clear that Margaret, later, grew more strict, and values herself with her friends on having the tie now "redeemed from all search after Eros." So much, however, of intellectual aim and activity mixed with her alliances, as to breathe a ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... of Bergson." American Magazine. May "Threatened Collapse of Bergson boom in France." Current Opinion. July "The Banning of Bergson." Independent. Dec. "Bergson Looking Backward." Literary Digest. "Bergson on ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... happens to tell his man of business that shops (tabernae) belonging to him were tumbling down and unoccupied. It is more than likely that many of the insulae were badly built by speculators, and liable to collapse. The following passage from Plutarch's Life of Crassus suggests this, though, if Plutarch is right, Crassus did not build himself, but let or sold his sites and builders to others: "Observing (in Sulla's time) the accidents that were familiar at Rome, conflagrations and tumbling ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... while after; [13th February, 1660, age 38.] left his big wide-raging Northern Controversy to collapse in what way it could. Sweden and the fighting-parties made their "Peace of Oliva" (Abbey of Oliva, near Dantzig, 1st May, 1660); and this of Preussen was ratified, in all form, among the other points. No homage more; nothing now above Ducal Prussia but the Heavens; and great times ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... taken ill, but the disease was not severe. In June, 1897, when he had circled the globe and had settled for a time in London, cablegrams came from that city announcing his mental and physical collapse. The English-speaking world was stricken with sympathy, and the New York Herald at once began a subscription fund for his relief. The report was contradicted at once, but admiration for the author's strenuous effort seemed to grow, and the ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... but not until three weeks after delivery. Lusk mentions a case of pregnancy with fibrocystic tumor of the uterus occluding the cervix. At the appearance of symptoms of eclampsia version was performed and delivery effected, followed by postpartum hemorrhage. The mother died from peritonitis and collapse, but the stillborn child was resuscitated. Roberts reports a case of pregnancy associated with a large fibrocellular polypus of the uterus. A living child was delivered at the seventh month, ecrasement was performed, and the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... that his profound agitation escaped the attention of the others, he could not explain. He was amazed to find that he had managed it so well. For, it must be confessed, Mr. Force's habitual equanimity had undergone a strain that came so near to resulting in a collapse that only a miracle—(it may have taken the form of stupefaction, or a kindly paralysis)—only a miracle could have kept him from betraying the one great ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on the natural side of her which knew no social law. When she reached home it was to learn to her grief that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the afternoon. Some such collapse had been probable, so tender and puny was its frame; but the event ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... section of a cask set up on four legs. It possesses a fifth leg, or outrigger at the back, and has cushions of flour-bags, stuffed with turkey's feathers. The owner doubtless finds it to his mind, but he has to guard against leaning to either side, or collapse is ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... his faculties until aid was near at hand, and then the long strain of physical and mental agony had brought about a collapse. ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis
... be in a more terrible state of complete collapse than poor Mr. Lorrimer. The blow he had most dreaded had overtaken him. He had been as plucky an English gentleman as ever walked. As true-hearted and affectionate a husband and father, as kind and considerate a landlord—as honourable ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... kept Carmen from a physical collapse. Quickly, if a little confusedly, she thought out a plan. There would, of course, be a question of insurance for the dead and injured cattle, she said to the elderly foreman who had taken Nick's place on the ranch. She would ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... while Brodie and Andrew Ainslie remained without to give a necessary warning. Whereupon Ainslie was seized with fright, and Brodie, losing his head, called off the others, so that six hundred pounds were left, that might have been an easy prey. Smith, indignant at the collapse of the long-pondered design, laid the blame upon his master, and they swung, as Brodie's grim spirit of farce suggested, for four ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... of Danish, Swedish, German, and Russian rule, Estonia attained independence in 1918. Forcibly incorporated into the USSR in 1940 - an action never recognized by the US - it regained its freedom in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since the last Russian troops left in 1994, Estonia has been free to promote economic and political ties with Western Europe. It joined both NATO and the EU ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency. |
