"Unsettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There's no end to that fellow's villainy. But his day of reckoning will come; I am sure of it, and the world will be none the worse for the loss of so vile a creature. If you take my advice you'll say nothing to Mr. Merriman of this discovery. 'Twould only unsettle the poor man. He had better know nothing until we can either restore the ladies to him or tell him ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... approach, the nice modulations necessary to "call" them successfully, and the reckless sweep with which they seem to throw aside all fear, and rush into the very jaws of death,—all these combine to unsettle the nerves and ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... brain, which knows nothing of any injuries inflicted upon itself. As regards what is new to us, a definition will sometimes dilute a difficulty, and help us to swallow that which might choke us undiluted; but to define when we have once well swallowed is to unsettle, rather than settle, our digestion. Definitions, again, are like steps cut in a steep slope of ice, or shells thrown on to a greasy pavement; they give us foothold, and enable us to advance, but when we are ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... individual, or even in the people, to undertake for themselves, on any prevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, any fundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a new government for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, and to unsettle the ancient Constitution of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... from Europe—mostly from Italy and the north of Spain—but the great majority are negroes, British subjects from Jamaica and Trinidad. It was foreseen that if negroes from the Southern States were employed, the high wages rates might unsettle the American cotton labor market: so it was decided to recruit from British colonies, and it is not too much to say that, so far as the Canal is hand-made, it is mainly the work of British labor. Several hundreds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... Mother, that I am about to confide the story of my soul. When you asked me to write it, I feared the task might unsettle me, but since then Our Lord has deigned to make me understand that by simple obedience I shall please Him best. I begin therefore to sing what must be my eternal song: "the ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... wife did not know which was their child and loved us both equally, now that they believe that Rupert is their son and that I was a fraud, they will have come to give him all their love, and I am not going to unsettle things again. That is my present idea, and I do not think that I am likely ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... at the motives that had chiefly decided him in returning to Gershom, and at the hopes he might be cherishing with regard to Miss Langden, and of both motives and hopes she was afraid. She was afraid that disappointment awaited him, and that the end of it would be to unsettle him again, and to disgust him with the life he ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... head mournfully. "No. He says it would unsettle me, and they would be always worrying round, and he wants peace and quietness—but, oh, Miss Patch, they loved me so, it must have nearly broken their hearts! And—and I love them so, I feel sometimes I can't bear it, I can't, I can't. I ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... had seen so much meek and pure-spirited self-denial; so much high principle in the conduct of Mademoiselle Hennequin, during an intimacy which had now lasted six months, that no passing feeling of doubt, like the one just felt, could unsettle the confidence created by her virtues. I know it may take more credit than belongs to most pocket-handkerchiefs, to maintain the problem of the virtues of a French governess—a class of unfortunate persons that seem doomed ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mrs. Starling made no attempt to unsettle them; on the other hand, she fell into a condition of permanent unrest which I do not know how to characterize. It was not ill-humour exactly; it was not displeasure; or if, it was displeasure at ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... looked at his wine-glass while Lydgate was speaking. Whatever was not problematical and suspected about this young man—for example, a certain showiness as to foreign ideas, and a disposition to unsettle what had been settled and forgotten by his elders—was positively unwelcome to a physician whose standing had been fixed thirty years before by a treatise on Meningitis, of which at least one copy marked ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... were encompassed by another world, and having their own proper bounds, which it is death for them to pass, they afford our belly no pretence at all for their destruction; and therefore to catch or be greedy after fish is plain deliciousness and luxury, which upon no just reason unsettle the sea and dive into the deep. For we cannot call the mullet corn-destroying, the trout grape-eating, nor the barbel or seapike seed-gathering, as we do some land-animals, signifying their hurtfulness by these epithets. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Maurice. The result was that the Council pronounced "the opinions expressed, and the doubts indicated in the Essays, and the correspondence respecting future punishments and the final issues of the day of judgment, to be of dangerous tendency, and likely to unsettle the minds of the theological students; and further decide that his continuance as Professor would be seriously detrimental to the interests of the College."[160] Maurice afterward held the office of Chaplain to Lincoln's Inn, but in 1860 he was appointed ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... result would be to oblige the Government of the United States to enter the courts ostensibly to assert and protect its title to said land, while in point of fact it would be used to enforce private claims to the same and unsettle private ownership. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... is that it invariably leads to periodic wars, which unsettle all business, and but too often introduce into legitimate trade the element of chance. These wars give, moreover, to designing railroad managers an opportunity to enrich themselves by stock speculations at the expense of the stockholders, whose interests they use as a football ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... that a child should pass through a school course without coming in contact with some who awaken and understand and influence her for good. It offers too the chance of making friends, and though "sets" and cliques, plagues of school life, may give trouble and unsettle the weaker minds from time to time, yet if the current of the school is healthy it will set against them, and on the other hand the choicest and best friendships often begin and grow to maturity in the common life of ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... no great Sagacity to foresee what the Consequence would be of the Pains taken to unsettle all Principles of Religion. Infidelity and Immorality are too nearly allied, to be long separated; and though some have pretended to preserve a Sense of Virtue without the Aid of Religion, yet Experience ...
— A Letter from the Lord Bishop of London, to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster; On Occasion of the Late Earthquakes • Thomas Sherlock
... it. I trust the work thus commenced will go on until fully successful. But I would like to say further that I do not agree with those gentlemen who allege that the women who advocate this movement are universally, or to any considerable extent, desirous to unsettle family relations, or that they would change the present honored form of union of the sexes. I believe they embrace among their number, and largely embrace, the best and purest women of the land, who will have an influence growing year by year ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of the comedy does not lag or limp from the opening scene to Valere's last words. The versification is easy and natural; the dialogue abounds in wit and comic humor; it is short and quick, with none of those tedious declamations which weary and unsettle the attention of an audience. Take it all in all, we may say, that, if Moliere had chosen the same subject, he could hardly have handled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... to you about, you cross thing? Oh! Kossuth. Well, then, here is an immensely interesting person, whom we invited over here to settle, and who is much more likely to unsettle us. How far would you have him unsettle us? To the extent of carrying us into a war with Russia, or of banding us, with all liberal governments, in a war with the despotic governments, so that Europe ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... is against you? Why impede the circulation of books which take religious views opposite to your own? Why forbid your children and scholars the free perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light literature which you fear would unsettle their minds? Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun those, if you think that your friends have reason on their side as fully as your opponents? Truth is bold and unsuspicious; want of self-reliance is the mark ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... anti-social crime, Foul in its birth and fatal in its issue. Tyrannic act, incendiary speech, Recklessly rend the subtly woven tissue That binds Society's organs each to each. Strong Toiler, deft Auxiliar, stalwart Warder, Your hour has struck, your tyrants face their doom, But let hot haste unsettle temperate order, And Hope's bright disc will feel eclipse's gloom. This is a lying spirit, sly and sinister, Its promise false, its loud incitements vain. Not to your true advantage shall it minister, Mere Goblin ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... this? Would it not be more profitable and humane, than to disturb them with formalities that have no virtue in themselves—to distress them with useless controversies, that settle no one point, teach no one doctrine, but unsettle and unfix all the good that our simple creed had previously built up and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... summoned home; for her mother was too unwell and dispirited to do without her any longer. Her father offered to come and take her place, but Arthur and Violet decided that it would be a pity to unsettle him from home again. Arthur was now able to sit up for some hours each day, and Percy undertook to be always at hand. He was invited to Brogden for Christmas; but it was agreed between him and Theodora that they must deny themselves the pleasure of spending it together; they thought it unfit ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Pegasus," and but failed where it may be doubted whether even the fittest for such a task would have succeeded,—full allowance is, at the same time, made for the great martyr of genius himself, whom so many other causes, beside that restless fire within him, concurred to unsettle in mind and (as he himself feelingly expresses it) "disqualify for comfort;"—whose doom it was to be either thus or less great, and whom to have tamed might have been to extinguish; there never, perhaps, having existed an individual to whom, whether as author or man, the following ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... speed, what shall become of the rest? Hero was beloved of many, but one did enjoy her; Penelope had a company of suitors, yet all missed of their aim. In such cases he or they must wisely and warily unwind themselves, unsettle his affections by those rules above prescribed,— [5856]quin stultos excutit ignes, divert his cogitations, or else bravely bear it out, as Turnus did, Tua sit Lavinia conjux, when he could not get ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the lighted window-pane. Though I had lived among the seven hills almost all my life; and though in ways it had grown familiar, and even dear to me, yet I never seemed to grow quite used to the city. It had strange tricks of deception that were enough to unsettle the finest faith. For when I looked at it from the windows of my room under the roof it was as flat as a plate, visible in its entirety from end to end, and it was as easy to find Telegraph Hill or the Plaza upon it as it was to pick up a block from the carpet. But, when ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... comes I must part with dear Margaret," she said to herself. "It will not do to have the two together. Alec may possibly attempt to impress his opinions on her mind, and may unsettle it should he fail to do more permanent injury; or, even should he keep them to himself, her sweet disposition, and other attractive qualities, may win his heart, while she may give her's in return, and I am sure that his father would ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... the way his ears wiggle when he gets excited. Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from the husband having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him." She broke off and scrutinized Sally closely. "Say, what do ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... the sea: on my battle-field, where drink has been the only slayer, there are many dead; and I can imagine that I hear the full volume of cries from those who are stricken but still living. The vision would unsettle my reason if I had not a trifle of Hope remaining. The philosophic individual who talks in correctly frigid phrases about the evils of the Liquor Trade may keep his reason balanced daintily and his nerve unhurt. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... earnestly, "believe me, monarchy, even at the present day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... Winthrop should succeed in bringing the work to perfection, Brewster begs him to remember his wife and children. "I mean if this my work should miscarry by wars of the Indians, for I may not remove it till it be perfected, otherwise I should so unsettle the body by removing sun & moon out of their settled places, that there would then be no other afterworking." Once more he inculcates secrecy, and for a most comical reason: "For it is such a secret ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Max Lenz is too reckless in his generosity towards Lowe, for his actions from beginning to end of his career prove that he was a dreadful creature. The thought of him and of those incarnate spiders who kept spinning their web, and for six mortal years disgracing humanity, is in truth enough to unsettle one's reason. Vainly they had ransacked creation in search of persons in authority to support them in the plea of justification, but never a soul came forth to share what is now regarded as ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... began to give ear to the bold speeches of the philosophers, who loudly proclaimed their sufferings and their rights; and, in short, that the age would not pass away without the occurrence of some great outburst, which would unsettle France, and change the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his seat. "Here's my station," he said. "The reason is—it might unsettle his ideas. He's a conservative Democrat, you know, and he likes to make speeches ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... down to posterity with the brand of Cain upon his brow. Several even of the higher critics took fright. Jeffrey, while protesting his appreciation of the literary merits of the work, lamented its tendency to unsettle faith. Mr. Campbell talked of its "frightful audacity." Bishop Heber wrote at great length to prove that its spirit was more dangerous than that of Paradise Lost—and succeeded. The Quarterly began to ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... has just fallen upon us, we find it impossible to feel that all things about us are not changed. We cannot imagine ourselves falling into the old daily routine again. The death of one dear to us gives us a shock which seems to unsettle the very foundation of things. A sense of insecurity and unreality pervades all that concerns us. We shrink from the thought that the old pleasures will charm us again, that daily cares will occupy our minds to the ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the bargain and the terms, and whether the negroes were honest, and sound, and all that. Well, though I looked out as often as I well could with civility, I saw nothing of you, and began to fear that something had happened to unsettle the whole plan; but, after a while, I saw Peter, with his mouth drawn back and hooked up into his ears, with his white teeth glimmering like so many slips of moonshine in a dark night, and I then concluded that all was as it should be. But seeing ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... have it, you had locked your bedroom, and taken away the key. I went into my own to unsettle the bedclothes, as usual, and give the bed the appearance of having been slept in. Now, a variety of circumstances concurred to bring about the dreadful scene through which I was that night to pass. In the first place, I was ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... practitioner. He does not merely state a theory of agitation: he proceeds to agitate. "Do not," he says, "set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as false or true. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred, none are profane. I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no past at my back." He was not engaged in teaching many things, but one thing,—Courage. Sometimes he inspires it by pointing to great characters,—Fox, Milton, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... tottering Compromise of 1850. Why did he so upset it? Not certainly because he wished to reopen the Slavery Question; nothing is less likely, for it was a question in which he avowedly felt no interest and the raising of which was bound to unsettle his plans. Not from personal ambition; for those who accuse him of having acted as he did for private advantage have to admit that in fact he lost by it. Why then did he so act? I think we shall get ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... the railroads. He was always in the county convention, and preferred to serve on the committee on credentials, and leave to others the more showy work of membership in the committee on resolutions. He believed in education, provided it did not unsettle things. He had a good deal of Latin and some Greek, and lived on a farm rather than in a fine house in the county seat because of his lack of financial ability. As a matter of fact, he had been too strictly scrupulous to do the things—such ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... to co-operate with Stoneman's raid, which at these dates should have been well on Lee's rear, and to unsettle Lee's firm footing preparatory to the heavy blows Hooker was preparing to deliver; but, as Stoneman was delayed, these movements failed of much of their intended effect. Nevertheless, Jackson's corps was drawn down to the vicinity, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... had no particular regard for their own leader, who was arrogant, and by no means liberal. Profiting by these important hints, the general sent a conciliatory letter to Narvaez, beseeching him not to unsettle the natives by a show of animosity, when it was only by union they could hope for success, and declaring that for his part he was ready to greet Narvaez as a brother in arms, to share with him the fruits of conquest, and, if he could produce a royal ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... look back to the original pretences of those who set out as reformers, I think we shall be able to form a clear decision as to the part we ourselves should act, where the confusion they labour to excite has actually commenced. They first unsettle our obedience by discovering what they call the iniquity of our governors; and indeed it is not difficult for those who look with a malignant eye on their conduct to perceive such errors, or, if you will, vices, as an artful and censorious temper may dress up into glaring enormities, especially ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... subsidiary relations will of necessity arrange themselves by mutual adaptation, without constantly calling for the clumsy interference of authority. We must leave behind us no expectation and no fear of change, to unsettle men's minds and dishearten their industry. Both the late master and the late slave should begin on the new order of things with a sense of its permanence on the one hand and its rightfulness on the other. They ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... you for being an outspoken man, and true to those who have used you well. You could do him no good, and you might do harm to others, and unsettle simple minds, by going on about him among ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... rattled on, copiously greasing the joint of his inconsistency with words; while the boy listened silently, his eyes fixed on the horse, his mind seething. It was all lost eloquence; no array of words could unsettle a belief of Jean-Marie's; and he drove into Fontainebleau filled with pity, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all hoppin' around half crazy when Mr. Sperrit come along on his way to the weddin' 'n' his wife run out 'n' told him what was the matter 'n' he come right in 'n' looked up at the matter. It did n't take long for him to unsettle Hiram, Mrs. Macy says. He got a sulphur candle 'n' tied it to a stick 'n' h'isted the lid with another stick, 'n' in less 'n two minutes they could all hear Hiram sneezin' an' comin' to. 'N' Mrs. Macy says when they hollered what time it was she wishes the whole town ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... don't let us talk about anything more that is disagreeable. I do not want to say anything about Julia. You have taken your way—and I do not mean to unsettle you in it; but Julia is in another line, and I cannot have you interfere with her. I am very sorry it is so,—but it is not my doing. I cannot help it. I do not want to ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Fitzadree's good charger was all mettle, And soon won to the middle of the stream— But then the sky grew black as a tea kettle; It rained, too, quite as fast as ever steam Rose. But the thing which did at last unsettle The balance of John's steed, was what you'll deem A being that was nearly supernatural— But here the waves John's clothes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... and to eradicate these patriotic sentiments, which had taken strong hold of the minds and hearts of the people of both sections. For more than two generations the Union had been held sacred, beyond all other earthly blessings. It was an object of the first magnitude to unsettle ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... &c. (fold) 258; involvement. interchange &c. 148. V. derange; disarrange, misarrange[obs3]; displace, misplace; mislay, discompose, disorder; deorganize[obs3], discombobulate, disorganize; embroil, unsettle, disturb, confuse, trouble, perturb, jumble, tumble; shuffle, randomize; huddle, muddle, toss, hustle, fumble, riot; bring into disorder, put into disorder, throw into disorder &c. 59; muss [U.S.]; break the ranks, disconcert, convulse; break in upon. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began to unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever since; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a worthless fellow to love my confiding ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... heat of brain and your too strong affection For Albert, fighting with your other passion, Unsettle you, and give reality 240 To these ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... others eschew luxury. The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches. Sometimes there is an element of self-interest in the proposed reformation, as when a publisher wanted a duty imposed on books, to keep Americans from reading books which would unsettle their Americanisms; and when artists wanted a tax laid on pictures, to save Americans from buying ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... Scarborough into Paris, and they are to spend the winter and spring there, and perhaps go on to Germany in the summer. At first papa was very anxious to take me with them; but Augusta dropped some little hints—it would interrupt my studies, and unsettle me, and so on. You know I am rather proud, Mary, so you can imagine I was not slow to understand her. I said I would much prefer to stay at Thornleigh, and proposed immediately that you should come to me and be my companion, and help me on ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... the validity of. That this is so we may have occasion to observe among ourselves. Christian teachers question the wisdom of bringing young people under free-thinking influence, because, although they do not deny the morals of free-thinkers, they believe that to unsettle the young may have a disastrous effect, not only on belief, but also on conduct. Yet this dangerously unsettling process has been applied by missionaries on a wholesale scale to races which in some respect are often little more than children. When, therefore, we are considering ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... it is to be given something with a meaning. Most people think that to be able to buy what they wish, within reason, is perfect happiness, but it isn't. Barbara, you and this man of yours quite unsettle me and shake my pet theories. You show sides of things in my own birthplace that I never dreamed of looking up, and you convince me, when I am on the wane, that married friendship is the only thing worth living for. It's too bad of you, but fortunately ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... we can well imagine what a portent it must appear to distant and unprepared observers, when the stars to which they trusted for guidance are seen to "shoot madly from their spheres," and not only lose themselves for the time in another system, but unsettle all calculations with respect to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... these damn theorists, that's what he is," said Baker; "and he's got a little authority, and he's doing just as much as he can to unsettle business and hinder the legitimate development of the country." He relaxed his earnestness with another grin. "Stung again. That's two rises you got out of me," he remarked. "Say, Orde, don't get persuaded to turn ranger. I hear ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... mind very much from the contemplation of Divine things, the praise of God, and prayers for the people, which belong to the duties of a cleric. Wherefore just as commercial enterprises are forbidden to clerics, because they unsettle the mind too much, so too are warlike pursuits, according to 2 Tim. 2:4: "No man being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular business." The second reason is a special one, because, to wit, all the clerical Orders are directed to the ministry of the altar, on which the Passion ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts to me are sacred; none are profane. I simply experiment—an endless seeker, with ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Lawrence, do not be hasty! Think of all that depends upon your judgment in this matter. From the very first you have been the bitterest and most formidable opponent of this absurd scheme. If you turn round you will unsettle public opinion throughout the country. Remember, the power of the statesman is ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Browne. "She'll learn. So are you—you'll learn. And remember this, my boy, always respect old legends. A disregard for them will so unsettle you that finally you will find yourself—at the foot of the gallows in all human probability. I suppose," sadly, "that you are even so far gone in scepticism as to doubt the glorious truth of the moon's being ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... departure of Mr. Pohlman so affected a maiden sister, Miss Pohlman, then at Amoy, as to unsettle her mind and necessitate an immediate return to the United States. No lady friend could accompany her. It was decided that Mr. Talmage take passage on the same ship and act as guardian and render ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... is only that these preparations for the Bishop unsettle my mind from study. Now put on your other coat and hat, and come with ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Herschel was able to account for the phenomena associated with nebulous stars and the supposed changes which were observed in some nebulae. The nebular hypothesis as described by Herschel was not received with much favour, nor did it unsettle much the belief that all nebulae were vast stellar aggregations, and that their cloudy luminosity was a consequence of the inadequacy of telescopic power to resolve them into their component stars. Laplace, who was highly gifted as ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... "'Don't unsettle their minds, dear,' she whispered softly to me. 'I don't want to,' I said; 'I only want to show them that, though such things are done in other countries, there is no sin in it as they have been ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... labor wars, where society is held together, not as in Russia by the ties of affection, brotherhood and communal interest, but only by money and greed, and where free thinkers, atheists and materialists abound, whose lives and thoughts would unsettle the holy, orthodox feelings of Russia, disturb her ancient conscience and poison her humility with ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... address, had said that I had come too late to do him and other old people good; that, had I come when the first white traders came, the Tsimsheans had long since been good; but they had been allowed to grow up in sin; they had seen nothing among the first whites who came amongst them to unsettle them in their old habits, but these had rather added to them fresh sins, and now their sins were deep laid, they (he and the other old people) could not change. Legaic interrupted him, and said, 'I am a chief, a Tsimshean chief. You know I have been bad, very bad, as bad as any ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... tumbled bricks on the top step. After you've gone through the front door you come into the hall where the wounded are as thick as flies. You go through the hall and turn to the left. There's a pantry place on your right all full of flies and when you open the door they unsettle with a great buzz and shift into all sorts of shapes and patterns. Next to them is our sitting-room, the horrid place always dirty and stifling. Then there's the operating-room, then another room for beds, then the kitchen. Outside to the right there's the garden, dry now with the ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... which we have seen employed to shake the nerves and unsettle the mind in the service of superstition,—can they be turned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... and allowing her eyes, which had been lowered during her brief recital, to rise to her husband's face. "My dear mother died a day or two afterwards. She died regretting having to own even what she did, and begging me not to think unkindly of my father, and not to unsettle your mind by telling you what could ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... left its control. He had been a Democrat. But he had seen the importance of the protective policy to American interests, as would naturally be expected of a descendant of that high protectionist, Thomas Jefferson. He had no sympathies with any measures that would debase or unsettle the currency, and set his face and gave his powerful influence against all forms of fiat or irredeemable paper money, and the kindred folly of the free coinage of silver by this country alone, without the concurrence of the commercial ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... ruler felt himself girt with difficulties: the Austrian army was as yet ill organized: the reforms after which the Archduke Charles had been striving were ill received by the military clique; and the sole result had been to unsettle rather than strengthen the army, and to break down the health of the Archduke.[19] Yet the intention of Napoleon to treat Italy as a French province was so insultingly paraded that Francis felt war to be inevitable, and resolved to strike a blow ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Philip Sidney saw the enthusiasm which agitated every man, woman, and child in the Netherlands against Philip and D'Alva, he told Queen Elizabeth that it was the spirit of God, and that it was invincible. What is the spirit which seems to move and unsettle every other man in England and on the Continent at this time? Upon my conscience, and judging by St. John's rule, I think it is a special spirit of the devil—and a very vulgar ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... the captain, his military pride reviving a little, to unsettle his last convictions of duty. "Did you open your columns, and charge your enemies, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Spike. It would unsettle the rustic mind. They're fearfully particular about that sort ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... didn't mean that; but anybody may outlive anybody for that matter. Anyway, there's no chance of any of these schemes coming to pass while we are young enough to care, even if they ever do; and if they unsettle us now, it ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was her fault; but was not the world, spiritual and material, in conspiracy against her, and against Huggo, and against her other darlings, to make easy her fault? Ah, that war, that war! Didn't it unsettle everybody and everything? Naturally it unsettled the boy down at the tutor's. Naturally one did not notice or foresee the trend of his unsettlement. Naturally it made plausible ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... It is 1866, and "Petroleum V. Nasby," writing from "Confedrit X Roads," Kentucky, gives Deekin Pogram's views on education. "He didn't bleeve in edjucashun, generally speekin. The common people was better off without it, ez edjucashun hed a tendency to unsettle their minds. He had seen the evil effex ov it in niggers and poor whites. So soon ez a nigger masters the spellin book and gits into noosepapers, he becomes dissatisfied with his condishin, and hankers after ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... second Federal Convention be called for considering the amendments suggested by the various states. The proposal was supported by the Virginia legislature, but Massachusetts and Pennsylvania opposed it, as having a dangerous tendency to reopen the whole discussion and unsettle everything. The proposal fell to the ground. People were weary of the long dispute, and turned their attention to electing representatives to the first Congress. With the adhesion of New York all serious anxiety came to an ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... women leaving home, and we hear it with deepest sorrow. Do you know why women leave home? There is a reason. Home is not made sufficiently attractive. Would letting politics enter the home help matters. Ah no! Politics would unsettle our men. Unsettled men mean unsettled bills—unsettled bills mean broken ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... very immoral character as to women: that knowing this, it is a high degree of impurity to think of joining in wedlock with such a man: that he is young, unbroken, his passions unsubdued: that he is violent in his temper, yet artful; I am afraid vindictive too: that such a husband might unsettle me in all my own principles, and hazard my future hopes: that his own relations, two excellent aunts, and an uncle, from whom he has such large expectations, have no influence upon him: that what tolerable ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... thy soul, as God hath laid him in the church for "a sure foundation that whoso believeth in him may not be ashamed." Whatever besides a soul be established on, though it appear very solid, and the soul be settled and fixed upon it, yet a day will come that will unsettle that soul and raze that foundation. Either it shall be now done in thy conscience, or it must be done at length, when that great tempest of God's indignation shall blow from heaven "against all unrighteousness of men," in the day of accounts. Then shall thy ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to win at the game, whose moves are death, It maketh a man draw too proud a breath: And to see his force taken for reason and right, It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite. Never did chief of the line of Sword Keep his wits whole at that drunken board. He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate, Of the field of his action, for soul as great: He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind, ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... till I said a word yesterday which foolishly seemed to unsettle it. But I have thought it over again, and I find that I ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... Metaphysicians can unsettle things, but they can erect nothing. They can pull down a church, but they cannot build ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... orphan children to bring up, are often rewarded for their trouble; as sometimes a girl of fifteen will be more useful than one much older: and where a family is small it does very well, but in large families, a little girl is so often called from her work, that it has a tendency to unsettle ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... the conspiracy? Since you have so much of his confidence, you might warn him to be careful. Doubts of our father's wisdom must unsettle him woefully. I do not ask to join the alliance, but it may please you to know that in my belief Hetty has been treated too fiercely for her deserts, and in my sermon I intend to ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume, I know I am restless and make others so, I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them, I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me, I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule, And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me, And the lure of what is call'd heaven is ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... speaking, his friend entered with the quiet and dignified mien he always maintained, when it was not his pleasure to throw aside the reserve of high station, or when he yielded to the torrents of feeling that sometimes poured through his southern temperament, in a way to unsettle the deportment of mere convention. He was presented to Roger de Blonay and the bailiff, as the person just alluded to, and as the oldest and most tried of the friends of his introducer. His reception by the former was natural and warm, while the Herr Hofmeister was so particular in ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... same words to herself over and over again. With all the efforts which she had made she could not quite reconcile herself to the two letters which she had written in the book. This coming up to London, and riding in the Park, and going to the theatres, seemed to unsettle her. At home she had schooled herself down into quiescence, and made herself think that she believed that she was satisfied with the prospects of her life. But now she was all astray again, doubting about herself, hankering after something over and beyond that which seemed to be allotted ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... she said, tenderly, that evening, when they were all talking it over in the family council, "I hope you didn't drop anything, when that poor creature spoke to you about it this morning, that could unsettle her mind ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... delights to hear the sails of old opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss for him to repeat again and again: "Do not disturb my opinions. Do not unsettle my mind; I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let me go backward ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... from Virginia was by no means encouraging. Given the long record of disappointment there, and the many men who previously had died there, the fact that several hundred of the most recent settlers had succumbed might have been expected to unsettle any administration. Perhaps it was the king's interference, serving as it did to rally the adventurers in defence of the company's liberty. Perhaps Sir Thomas was guilty of too naked a display of his power, with the result that the lesser adventurers, who ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... shall be exerted in restraining this or any other citizen of the State of Maine from adopting proceedings within the British limits (as claimed) calculated to infringe the authority and jurisdiction of this Province and to disturb and unsettle the minds of that portion of its inhabitants residing in the disputed territories until the question in dispute be brought to a final settlement Greely shall ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... himself, as so many students are able to do, by teaching in the public schools. So it seemed likely that this situation might be the very thing they could wish for him for the next few years. However, there were many things to be considered with regard to it. It might unsettle him from his eager pursuit of his studies, and from the cheerful doing of his other duties, were anything to be said about his leaving home just now. So they were silent, and the old year went out, and the new year came in, and everything ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Lord Cameron, positively; "it would but unsettle you the more; and now that I come to think of it the more, that face—though I caught but the merest glimpse of its outline—was ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... they will conform to yours. An exercise of authority on this point amounts, in my opinion, to an act of tyranny, and it can only tend to promote insincerity, and, perhaps, engender skepticism in its object. Nothing is, indeed, so dangerous as to unsettle the faith of the lower classes, who have neither time nor opportunity of fairly considering subjects of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... of myself," I replied; "but you know how shattered my nerves are, and how little a thing it takes to unsettle me. I do wish my Job's comforters, as you call them, would have more discretion than to talk to me ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... history for many centuries, that would signify or prove nothing. Would water, air, earth, fire, be less useful to man whether they were or were not elements? Such errors are of no consequence; they lead to no revolutions, do not unsettle the mind; above all, they injure no interests, so they might, without inconvenience, endure for millions of years. The physical world would progress just as if they did not exist. Would it be thus with errors which attack the moral world? Can we conceive ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... the skipper was very fidgety, so I thought I would not further unsettle him by obtruding my own opinion—which coincided with his—upon him; therefore, finding him slightly disposed to be taciturn, I left him, and made the round of the deck, assuring myself that all hands were on the alert, and ready to go to quarters at any moment. ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... error, we learn from the example of Origen and many others. Not content to let the simple narratives of Scripture speak for themselves and convey their proper lessons of instruction, these allegorical expositors force upon them a higher spiritual sense. In so doing, they unsettle the very principles by which the spiritual doctrines of Scripture ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... the noble spirit in which the son held fast his post, and the father forebore to unsettle him there, let not their example he used in the unkind and ignorant popular cry against the occasional return of colonial Bishops. For, be it remembered, that dire necessity was not drawing Coleridge Patteson to demand pecuniary assistance round all the platforms of English towns. The ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at last. "I almost think, for some things, papa wants to go, and that it's a good thing for him, and if it's a good thing for him I dare say God wouldn't unsettle it." ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... the late Declaration to the Kingdom of England, as the sense of this Kingdom) considered in relation to Religion makes the danger yet the greater and more palpable, yea, may reach further to shake and unsettle Religion established in this Land; If to the premises this be added which is not only often declared, but also demanded, That his Majestie be brought to one of his houses in Honour, Freedom and Safety, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... Looking around, she saw, disappearing from an old road that led away to Tushielaw, the last of the king's troops; and she omened sadly that they had completed their work. She hesitated again, whether she should proceed to a place where she would inevitably behold a sight that might unsettle her reason. But whether could she fly? What could she do? Her little children were there; it was still her home, and the dead body of her beloved husband was also there. But judgment might vacillate according to its laws; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various |
