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More "Ransack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Find out where he lives and what he does; and ransack his room if possible. He is either an innocent man or a sleek rascal. Report to me this time ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Albany that he hoped the small supply that he obtained and the chest of medicines that Morgan had just sent would hold out until he could obtain additional supplies in New England, where he was then headed "to ransack that Country of those articles ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... of co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah, not even in dey vittles, sah, even if dey was pie, which dey wa'n't, sah, fob dis we'y day Mistah Falk he wants pie and stew'd he come, and me and he, sah, we sho' ransack dis galley, sah, and try like we can, not even two of us togetheh, sah, can sca' up a piece of pie foh Mistah Falk, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... that rapid walking to and fro which was working such havoc in the nerves of the man in the room below her. When she paused, it was to ransack a trunk and bring out a flat wallet filled with newspaper clippings, many of them discoloured by time, and all of them ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... I betake me somewhat oftener to my library. It is in the chief approach to my house, so that under my eyes are my garden, my base-court, my yard, and even the best rooms of my house. There, without order or method, I can turn over and ransack now one book and now another. Sometimes I muse, sometimes save; and walking up and down I indite and register these my humours, these my conceits. It is placed in a third storey of a tower. The lowermost ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... replied, "I do not lack, Though with but one provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better." In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. "Now," said the cat, "your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine." With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found. A hundred times he falsified The nose of every hound.— Was ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... night, through districts inhabited only by the roughest and poorest classes, entirely unmolested; and that we trusted much on many occasions to the honesty of the people, and never found cause to repent our trust—I cannot but feel that it would be an ungracious act to ransack newspapers and Reports to furnish materials for recording in detail, the vices of a population whom I have only personally known by their virtues. Let you and I, reader, leave off with the same pleasant ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... love for the livid corpse they have found at the bottom of the river. They seize it, feel it, clasp it in their arms; they are drunk with the desire to know; they no longer look with interest upon things, except to see them pass; they do nothing except doubt and test; they ransack the world as though they were God's spies; they sharpen their thoughts into arrows, and give ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... me. With noiseless steps I went the length of the dim, padded interior corridor to my own room. My belongings seemed undisturbed; a vague idea that Spawn might have seized this opportunity to ransack them had come to me. But it seemed not; though if he had he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... thing was to send those two decent fellows to meet you, with orders to scatter bits of orange-peel and draw crosses and circles, in short, to mark out your road to this place.... Why, you look quite bewildered! What is it? Perhaps you don't recognize me? Lupin.... Arsene Lupin.... Ransack your memory.... Doesn't the ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... he can conceive little. When first I engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, the obscure recesses of northern learning which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with which I expected every search into those neglected mines to reward my labor, and the triumph with which I should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus inquired into the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attention to things; to pierce deep ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... when she heard she was to go to Bergen, she regularly turned the house upside down. There was nothing good enough for her in the whole shop; there was not a shelf that she didn't ransack to find the finery and frippery ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... it is in Boston that you can best imagine the strenuous grapple of the native forces which all alien things must yield to till they take the American cast. It is almost dismaying, that physiognomy, before it familiarizes itself anew; and in the brief first moment while it is yet objective, you ransack your conscience for any sins you may have committed in your absence from it and make ready to do penance for them. I felt almost as if I had brought the dirty streets with me, and were guilty of having left ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... together the materials for even a modest exhibition of the kind which he contemplated, it became necessary for him to ransack old portfolios, and to borrow from dealers, and from his few discriminating private patrons, works which had but recently left his studio and could still be traced; to utilize all the hours ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Captain Nemo then said. "You observe this confined bay? A month from now in this very place, the numerous fishing boats of the harvesters will gather, and these are the waters their divers will ransack so daringly. This bay is felicitously laid out for their type of fishing. It's sheltered from the strongest winds, and the sea is never very turbulent here, highly favorable conditions for diving work. Now let's put ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... 'arth!" she went on. "Half the time you might ransack Wallencamp from top to bottom, and you'd find everybody a'most somewhere, and nobody to hum! It ain't much like the cake Silvy made last week—she's crazier than ever—'Where's the raisins, Silvy?' says ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... did not look like men suffering from thirst. However, a most extraordinary effect was produced on two of them, for they fell down on the deck, and rolled about as if in intense agony. This drew the attention of all hands on them; and as we had no surgeon on board, the captain began to ransack his medical knowledge ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... distraught ambition compasses, And is encompassed, while as craft deceives, And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: He looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... to the plain, fall upon the town of Castanium at daybreak; the bands of Victor and Marsus will accompany you and will be also under your orders. My orders are strict, that no one is to be injured unless he resists. Tell the inhabitants that we wish them no harm. Ransack the armourers' shops for arrow and javelin heads, and search all the private houses for weapons; also bring off all the brass, copper, and iron you can find, with every axe head and chopper in the town. We can ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... rustling of the leaves, were but poor comfort. Was this to be the end of his strange visit? Was he to start back upon his homeward journey without an opportunity to bid his phenomenal hosts good-bye? He could not bear the thought. Dorothy at all events must be found. He would search the grounds and ransack the house. Surely she must be somewhere within reach of his voice. But then she was so strange, so different from any woman he had ever known. How could he tell, perhaps she had left the old place forever! ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... traced out. He counted on stopping at the Feroe Islands, whither the north wind might have carried the castaways; then, if he was convinced that they had not been received in any of the ports of that locality, he would continue his search beyond the Northern Ocean, ransack the whole western coast of Norway as far as Bodoe, the place nearest the scene of the shipwreck; ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... Where have they taken thee, My only one, my darling? Oh, the brigands! Naples shall bleed for this. What do ye here, Slaves, fools, who stare upon me? Know ye not I have been robbed? Hence! Ransack every house From cave to roof in Naples. Search all streets. Arrest whomso ye meet. Let no sail stir From out the harbor. Ring the alarum! Quick! This is a general woe. [Exeunt LUCA and FIAMETTA.] The Duke's my friend; He'll further me. The Prince—oh, hideous fear!— ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... of a long life, was beautifully formed, aristocratic in its delicate contours; and he possessed, and constantly used, one of the most delectable, contagious and genuine laughs that ever made music in my ears. The men would ransack their humorous resources in conversation with Joe, merely for the sake of making him laugh. He would fix his old eyes squarely on yours, and laugh and laugh with infinite mirth and good nature. Such a sound in such a place ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... me! Fernand was actually born seven months after my marriage, by one of those fatalities that give ground for shameful accusations! I shall ask my aunt to carry the certificate in her pocket, until I can deposit it in some place of safety. The duke would ransack my rooms for it, and the whole police are at his service. Government refuses nothing to a man high in favor. If Joseph saw me going to Mademoiselle de Vaudrey's apartments at this hour, the whole house would hear of it. Ah—I am alone in the world, ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... there a month and ransack the islands, the cataracts and volcanoes completely, and write twenty or thirty letters, for which they pay as much money as I would get if ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Romance, on the other hand, dilates upon their piety and heroism, and portrays, in her most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honour they acquired for themselves, and the great services they rendered to Christianity. In the following pages we shall ransack the stores of both, to discover the true spirit that animated the motley multitude who took up arms in the service of the cross, leaving history to vouch for facts, but not disdaining the aid of contemporary poetry and romance, to throw light upon ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the terrace.' And then he took her hands, and his old smile was on his face. 'Don't have any more mistaken fancies, Audrey; all the gold of the Indies would not separate us. If I furnish my house, I will promise you that Gage and you shall ransack Wardour Street with me; and when you are married, my dear, you shall choose what I shall give you;' and as he said this he stooped over her, for she was still kneeling before the fire, and kissed her very gently just above her eyes. It was done so quietly, almost ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... believe your yam, boy — Ahey looked like very respectable gentlemen, both of them. You had better go about your business — after you have paid me for breaking down the door. You shan't ransack ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... that I wander about Paris a great deal, like book collectors who ransack book stalls. I just look at the sights, at the people, at all that is passing by and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... their native wildness and simplicity, when fancy, awakened by the sight of interesting objects, was most actively at work. At such moments, sensibility quickly furnishes similes, and the sublimated spirits combine images, which rising spontaneously, it is not necessary coldly to ransack the understanding or memory, till the laborious efforts of judgment exclude present sensations, and ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... gave to the world the Epoques de la Nature. "As in civil history one consults titles, hunts up medals, deciphers antique inscriptions to determine the epochs of revolutions amongst mankind, and to fix the date of events in the moral world, so, in natural history, we must ransack the archives of the universe, drag from the entrails of the earth the olden monuments, gather together their ruins and collect into a body of proofs all the indications of physical changes that can guide us back to the different ages ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and I Turn back the hands of memory's books: We sup on pleasures long gone by— We drink of unforgotten brooks; We ransack garrets of the Past, We sing old songs, we play old plays; While hurrying Time looks on ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... thanks to the women who have so generously allowed me to ransack their treasuries, filching here and there as I chose, always modestly declaiming against the existence of wit in what ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... Perceval thinks he has disarmed the Irish. He has no more disarmed the Irish than he has resigned a shilling of his own public emoluments. An Irish peasant fills the barrel of his gun full of tow dipped in oil, butters the lock, buries it in a bog, and allows the Orange bloodhound to ransack his cottage at pleasure. Be just and kind to the Irish, and you will indeed disarm them; rescue them from the degraded servitude in which they are held by an handful of their own countrymen; and you will add four millions of brave and affectionate ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... other sea port Towns. By this we are cut off from that domestick security which renders the lives of the most unhappy in some measure agreable. Those Officers may under colour of law and the cloak of a general warrant, break thro' the sacred rights of the Domicil, ransack mens houses, destroy their securities, carry off their property, and with little danger to themselves commit ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... much—only half-a-dozen articles of plate off the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack the house as they would ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lap. She was a terrible tea-drinker, and was very fond of me, but I ill requited her kindness by continually plundering her sugar-bowl. The latter she took to hiding, but I, engaging her the time in airy conversation, used to ransack the premises until I found it. Eventually it became a game of skill between the hider and the seeker. I can now see the old woman's eyes over the rims of her spectacles as she laid her knitting down and ruefully regarded the development ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... proceeded on his march; and as there was nothing left within fifty miles of Paris wherewith to support his famished troops, it may be imagined that he was forced to ransack the next fifty miles in order to maintain them. He did so. But the troops were not such as they should have been, considering the enemy with whom they had ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Corentin, to the gendarme, "and take him away by himself. And shut up that girl, too," pointing to Catherine. "As for you, Peyrade, search for papers," adding in his ear, "Ransack everything, spare nothing.—Monsieur l'abbe," he said, confidentially, "I have an important communication to make to you"; and he ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... are found in old trunks and bureaus, which have gathered dust for untold years in attics and storerooms. Opportunities to ransack old garrets are greatly appreciated by collectors, as the uncertainty of what may be found gives zest to their search. It was of such old treasure trove that the hangings were found to make what Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novel, "The Minister's Wooing," calls "the ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... to-morrow and finds it gone—what then? You know this Governor of Cesena well enough to be assured that he would ransack the castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until the ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... get to it?"... I would ransack the phases of my development from the first shy unveiling of a hidden wonder to the last extremity as a man will go through muddled account books to find some ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... fully drawn in the First Book, that the Poet adds nothing to it in the Second. We were before told, that he was the first who taught Mankind to ransack the Earth for Gold and Silver, and that he was the Architect of Pandaemonium, or the Infernal Place, where the Evil Spirits were to meet in Council. His Speech in this Book is every way suitable to so depraved a Character. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... gone?—'Tis time to part them.— He's simple and tells much. [To FLORIZEL.] How now, fair shepherd! Your heart is full of something that does take Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young And handed love as you do, I was wont To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it To her acceptance; you have let him go, And nothing marted with him. If your lass Interpretation should abuse, and call this Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... fear or for loss. The mishaps of following events may cause him to blame his providence, can never cause him to eat his promise: neither saith he, This I saw not; but, This I said. When he is made his friend's executor, he defrays debts, pays legacies, and scorneth to gain by orphans, or to ransack graves, and therefore will be true to a dead friend, because he sees him not. All his dealings are square and above the board; he bewrays the fault of what he sells, and restores the overseen gain of a false reckoning. He esteems a bribe venomous, though it come gilded over ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... had painstakingly scoured with silver polish one day to please the little tyrant, and which increased their value many times—so many times, in fact, that he hid them every night in fear of burglars. Since he concealed them each time in a different place, he was obliged to ransack his auntie's room every morning, to the great disturbance of Martha, the maid, ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... they crept up on me and grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they've done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that the sword is handsome enough to challenge ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... with that leprosy of lust, Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men Making them ransack to the very last The dregs of pleasure for their vanished ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... ransack my brain for the possibilities, and almost at once the talk on the train with Horace Barton, the wagon sales manager, flashed into ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... wants us badly. He will anticipate that one of us will go back to that house: to care for Kurgo's body, to get my belongings—for several reasons. So he will radio down—he probably can't come himself—for henchmen to station themselves at the house and to ransack it thoroughly for anything pertaining to me. The papers would fall into ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... distraught ambition compasses, And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives, And is deceiv'd: whilst man doth ransack man And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... made by skilful orators to seem damning and unanswerable. All the arts for inflaming popular passion under the pretext of "patriotism" would have been used, and we know that patriotism sometimes assumes strange disguises. The material would have been rich and easily accessible. Instead of having to ransack ancient numbers of Irish or American newspapers for incautious phrases dropped by Mr. Redmond or Mr. O'Brien in moments of unusual provocation, the speeches of Botha, Steyn, and De Wet, during the war, and even at the Peace Conference, would have been ready for the hoardings and the fly-sheets, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Don Alfonso stood confused; Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room, And, turning up her nose, with looks abused Her master and his myrmidons, of whom Not one, except the attorney, was amused; He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb, So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause, Knowing they must be ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... delighted, He is not fooled, but warily knoweth His love shall never be requited. And thus the wise Immortal doeth,— 'T is his study and delight To bless that creature day and night; From all evils to defend her; In her lap to pour all splendor; To ransack earth for riches rare, And fetch her stars to deck her hair: He mixes music with her thoughts, And saddens her with heavenly doubts: All grace, all good his great heart knows, Profuse in love, the king bestows, Saying, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and bargaining with a contentious company of porters. Alas! H. was not to be seen among them. There was still a chance; he might be one of the passengers who had got ashore before my coming down, and I was preparing to rush back to the city to ransack the hotels. Just then an internal convulsion shook the swarm around the luggage pile; out burst a little Gallego staggering under a huge British portmanteau, and followed by its much desired, and now almost ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... bed to find himself staring into the muzzles of three revolvers, held by two masked men, who stood looking over the footboard. Bidding them move at their peril, the man with two revolvers remained to guard the doctor and his wife, while the other began to ransack the room. As he did so, he carried on an easy, if not eloquent, dissertation upon the rights of man and the iniquitous conditions which made it necessary for the poor and oppressed to obtain by force, if they obtained at all, any ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... best part of an hour, in pursuance of her husband's counsel, the Mistress sat and waited for the prodigal's return. Then, surreptitiously, she made a round of the house; sent a man to ransack the stables, telephoned to the gate lodge, and finally came into the Master's study, big-eyed ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... allow his priest to come when he pleases, and handle the rich articles of his stores, ransack the desk where his money is deposited, and play with it as ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... Somewhere, in that beautiful apartment of his there must be clues which will send him to the electric chair on former crimes: Warren is an artist who has handled other brushes than the ones he used on this masterpiece. He is not a beginner. So, I must ransack ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest. "Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air, ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the death of the representative MOTHER of our race and age that bids us wrap our mourning robes around us. For any record of such another we ransack in vain the treasure stores of all history. She is the only mother that ever reigned in her own right over any potent realm; and certainly over our own. Queen Mary of unhappy memory, died childless, and her more fortunate sister, "Good Queen Bess," went down to her grave a maiden queen; but in the ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... discover the most convenient forms and materials, and endeavour to simplify them and reduce them to beautiful forms, while endless enterprising tradesmen will be alert for a perpetual succession of striking novelties. The women will ransack the ages for becoming and alluring anachronisms, the men will appear in the elaborate uniforms of "games," in modifications of "court" dress, in picturesque revivals of national costumes, in epidemic fashions ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... this!—hungry and cold!" exclaimed the lad, throwing off his Spanish cloak and tossing his cap to the hall table. "Come back, till she gets thoroughly warm, and I'll soon ransack the kitchen for eatables; a glass of Madeira now to begin with. Lady Mother, come and look at this little girl—it's a sin and a shame to see anything with ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... the windows outside and within, rude protection against thieves who might want to ransack the stock of the wangan store. His stout knife would ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... all the force she could muster, sallied forth from her palace in pursuit. Melissa, left behind, took advantage of the opportunity to ransack all the rooms, protected by the ring. She undid one by one all the talismans and spells which she found, broke the seals, burned the images, and untied the hagknots. Thence, hurrying through the fields, she disenchanted the victims ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... forests; and we still retain a marked liking for sweets of every sort. Not content with our strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, apples, pears, cherries, plums and other northern fruits, we ransack the world for dates, figs, raisins, and oranges. Indeed, in spite of our acquired meat-eating propensities, it may be fairly said that fruits and seeds (including wheat, rice, peas, beans, and other grains and pulse) still form by far the most important ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... Well! Burnside is good-natured—that is all. They forget the example of Canrobert and Pellisier, in the Crimea. Canrobert, after having commanded the army, gave up the command, and served under Pellisier. Oh declaimers! Oh imbeciles! ransack not the world—let Rome alone, and its Punic wars, its Varrus, etc.—Disturb not history, which, for you, is a book with seventy-seven seals. You understand not events under your long noses, and before your ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... were led to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that there have been ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... nothing in his errand that he should be ashamed of, he reminded himself with impatient severity, as he traversed the upper hall on tip-toe to the western chamber. He had, on sundry previous occasions, sought, in the receptacles he was about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the like trifles. Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he was too honorable to pry ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... table, he left them to wait upon themselves, while he went off to ransack the pantry soon to return with a sufficiency of viands, and savoury enough to satisfy men who had just come out of the Acordada. There was cold mutton, ham, and venison, maize bread, and "guesas de Guatemala," ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Hotel de Pekin before I had done anything startling, and soon C——, the genial and energetic Swiss, who is the master of this wonderful hostelry, had given me coffee. He told me then to go into his private rooms, ransack the place and take what I liked. I found I was not alone in his private apartments. Baron R——, the Russian commandant, had just come in before me, and had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue as he was in the act of eating something. He looked so ridiculous ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... already a large gang of thieves and vampires have descended on and near the place. Their presumed purpose is to rob the dead and ransack the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... intimacy with him lasted many years,—he became the feeder of my intellect. He delighted to ransack the history of a nation, of an art or a science, and bring to me all the particulars. Telling them fixed them in his own memory, which was the most tenacious and ready I have ever known; he enjoyed my clear perception as to their relative value, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... have had any course for a considerable time, there gold is always to be collected, the water having separated the metal from the earth, and deposited it in the sands, thereby saving the expence of digging; hence it is esteemed an infallible gain to be able to divert a stream from its channel, and ransack its bed. From this account of the manner of gathering gold, it should follow that there are no mines of this metal in Brazil, and this the governor of Rio Grande, who happened to be at St Catharines, and frequently ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... subjected them to a most severe captivity; employed them in those arts which are necessary for the support of life, in the lowest and most servile offices of the house, in the painful toils of the field; and frequently forced them, by the most inhuman treatment, to dig in mines, and ransack the bowels of the earth, merely to satiate their avarice; and hence mankind were divided into freemen and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... ordinary pass laws; but if his wife, who has had a better schooling and enjoyed an older civilization than he, were to go and reside in the "Free" State with her daughters, all of them would be forced to carry passes on their persons, and be called upon to ransack their skirt pockets at any time in the public streets at the behest of male policemen in quest of their passes. Several white men are at present undergoing long terms of imprisonment inflicted by the Orange "Free" State Circuit Courts for criminally outraging coloured ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... promise you success! Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!" he cried: "up, friend; your life hangs trembling in the scales: up, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... 'member de Yankees. Don't 'member dat they was so bad. You know they say even de devil ain't as black as he is painted. De Yankees did take off all de mules, cows, hogs, and sheep, and ransack de smoke-house, but they never burnt a thing at our place. Folks wonder at dat. Some say it was 'cause General Bratton was ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... diplomatic successes, a part of the world in which his Imperial word is law. He will continue to shower his favours upon it, and disturb everything there, so as to be able to fish in troubled waters. He will ransack everything for his purposes, even that very vague thing, homogeneous Turkey, based on the Mussulman faith. At this moment, he is planning I know not what kind of acceptance of the Cross by the Crescent, just as he planned ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... over their festival, and bestowed themselves in safety for a season. A prize of about five hundred prisoners was all which rewarded the sagacity of the enterprise. It is needless to add that they were all immediately executed. It is a wearisome and odious task to ransack the mouldy records of three centuries ago, in order to reproduce the obscure names of the thousands who were thus sacrificed.. The dead have buried their dead, and are forgotten. It is likewise hardly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in acquiring an insight into new things is a natural tendency or drift of the mind. As soon as we see something new and desire to understand it, at once we involuntarily begin to ransack our old stock of ideas to discover anything in our previous experience which corresponds to this or is like it. For whatever is like it or has an analogy to it, or serves the same uses, will explain this new thing, though the ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... Nine-tenths of the neighbours were far away on the seaters, and of the small remainder, almost all were attending the bishop on the opposite shore of the lake. Rolf shook his head at every deserted farm-house that he passed, thinking how the pirates might ransack the dwellings, if they should happen to discover that few inhabitants remained in them but those whose limbs were too old to climb the mountain. He shook his head again when he thought what consternation he might spread through these ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... them on had clubbed together and got them for her at the time; and had now given them to her for the honor she had done the Middlemount House in the parade. Mrs. Milray argued that the spring and summer months had secretly dispatched some fall and winter month to ransack the stores at Middlemount Centre for them. Clementina believed that they came from the shoe man himself, who had always wanted to send them, in the hope that she would keep them, and had merely happened to send them just then in that moment ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Plague spreads—and it looks as if all the City would presently be affected—all will have to run the risk of contagion. There are thousands of women now who voluntarily enter the houses as nurses for a small rate of pay. Even robbers, they say, will enter and ransack the houses of the dead in search of plunder. It will be a shame indeed then if one should shrink from doing so when possibly one ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... to leave neither words nor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, with the obscure recesses of northern learning, which I should enter and ransack; the treasures with which I expected every search into those neglected mines to reward my labour, and the triumph with which I should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus enquired into the original of words, I resolved to ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... I am to see the face of an honest man. I am so tired of those devils of spies who come here ten times a day to ransack my pockets and my cell to satisfy themselves that I am not preparing to escape. The government is very ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... demanded them of me. I denied all knowledge. Then they ransacked this house—I think they ransack it daily, but I am too clever for them. I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah, and when at first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to force me back with a pistol behind my head. Every morning Leon brings us food for the day—good food, but not enough, so ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Shakspeare club last winter," said I, "did you occupy your time in discussions of the text? Did you compare manuscripts? Did you investigate the canonicity of Shakspeare's various plays? Did you ransack the past to know the value of the latest theory that there never was a Will. Shakspeare save as a nom de plume for Lord Bacon? Did you inquire into the origin of his several plots, and study to know how much of his work was really his own and how much was borrowed from ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... the profit side of the account; you say not a word of the cost of it all. First, if there was a whisper of a new piece (no matter how bad the weather), one had to ransack all the garrets in Paris, until one had found the author; then to get a reading of the play, and adroitly to insinuate that there was a part in it which would be rendered in a superior manner by a certain person of my acquaintance.—"And by whom, if you please?"—"By ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... and Robert was drawn into a list. Then, full of joyfulness at being allowed to help, she gathered up her reins, she nodded her pretty little head at him, and was just starting off her ponies at full speed, equally eager 'to tell Harry' and to ransack Churton for the stores required, when it occurred to her to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "They will undoubtedly ransack the ship and plunder her of every article of the slightest value, in the first place," said I; "but what they will next do is not so certain. 'Dead men tell no tales,' however, and the chances are that every ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... individual great, except through the general. There is no choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning, and say, "I am full of life, I will go to sea, and find an Antarctic continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany, and find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I foresee a new mechanic power;" no, but he finds himself in the river of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities of his contemporaries. ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... royal party was masked, the unwilling host knew his guests but too well, and dared not deny their peremptory command. In the midst of the carousal, at a preconcerted signal, the king's followers began to ransack the house, maltreating the occupants, wantonly destroying the costly furniture, appropriating the silver plate, and breaking open doors and coffers in search of money. The next day even Paris itself was indignant ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... friends, and be very proud of his arguments, who would cut a very poor figure with those same arguments among those who are on the other side. Would you find out for yourself from books? What learning you will need! What languages you must learn; what libraries you must ransack; what an amount of reading must be got through! Who will guide me in such a choice? It will be hard to find the best books on the opposite side in any one country, and all the harder to find those on all sides; when found they would be easily answered. The absent are always in the wrong, and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... canal," which passes through the old state of Delaware, and unites the waters of the two bays. Here we were handed into a barge, or what we in common parlance would term a large canal boat; but the Americans are the fondest people in the universe of big names, and ransack the Dictionary for the most pompous appellations with which to designate their works or productions. The universal fondness for European titles that obtains here, is also remarkable. The president, is "his excellency,"—"congressmen," are "honorables,"—and every petty merchant, or ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... flint against any slightest approach to sentimentality is true. But why assume that the men do not exist who are capable of such a measure of self-control? Grant that there are whole volumes of devotional matter, original and compiled, which one may ransack without finding a single form that is not either prolix, wishy-washy, or superstitious—it does not follow that if the Prayer Book is to be enriched, the enrichments must necessarily come from such sources. Moreover it is to be remembered that there ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... respectable pursuit. He was aware, of course, that he could easily buy her an English peer or a foreign Prince for husband. But Sir Tancred's rank and birth satisfied his simple tastes; and he was quite sure that he might ransack the English peerage and the Courts of Europe without finding her as good a husband. He did not perceive that his millions ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... obeys. Monico and the ladies kiss his hands, weeping with gratitude. The mob in the street, talking and laughing, stands waiting for the general's permission to ransack the ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... may select an aged gander for its wisdom, knowing that the youthful gosling is proverbially "green." Miss Whiffle selected the aged gander for me, and I gnawed its sinewy limbs without a protest. On a similar principle she appeared to ransack the town shops for prehistoric joints (the locality was rich in fossils), and vegetables that, like eggs, only grew harder the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... To those who had time to think, a sad, heart-rending sight, pitiful evidence of the degrading influence of war. During the first year of the struggle there was not a man in the British army who would have pushed a woman aside to ransack the sacred corners of her chamber. But war's brutal influence in time blunted the finer instincts. How could it be otherwise? The longer a struggle is protracted the fiercer and more bestial it will ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... representative men and women its moral significance, its severe but picturesque unity. Some future artist, looking back for a memorable illustration of this period, will put this new "Declaration of Independence" upon canvas, and will ransack the land for portraits of those ladies who spoke for their countrywomen at the Capitol, and of those senators and representatives who gave them audience. Mrs. Stanton was followed by Miss Anthony, morally as inevitable and impersonal ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... in one letter unwisely recorded the slaughter of a boar, had been obliged to ransack Vienna for a pair of tusks. The tusks had not been so difficult. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... refreshments, after the immense fatigue they had all undergone in exploring the beauties of the surrounding country. Most of the party were of the same opinion, so forthwith he and Bob Mornington proceeded to ransack the hampers, and distributed the contents in the most primitive manner imaginable, to the amusement of the company generally, and to the extreme disgust of Grace Arlington in particular. And then there was a general move to ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... all hands to follow into the swamp. For my own part, I wished to stay behind, but was told that such a course was attended with danger, as the Indians would most likely emerge from another part of the hammock, and endeavour to seize the horses, and ransack the waggons. This decided my adopting the least of the two evils, although I fully expected we should have a battle. After penetrating for I should think upwards of two miles, sometimes up to our knees in miry clay, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... untidy ways once more. He would never forgive himself for having allowed that girl to ransack his drawers—but he must act, and at once! He must, without fail, find that mislaid document. Of one thing he was sure—the document was not on the premises. Brocq jumped ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... things is, he has help'd the Author to a better Name for his Play, and says, The Younger Brother, or, The Fortunate Cheat, had been much properer. [Footnote: Collier, p. 210.] This shews some good will he has to the Comick Trade however; and I doubt not, but if his Closet were Ransack'd, we might find a divertive Scene or two, effects of his idle Non-preaching hours, where Modesty, Wit, and good Behaviour, would be shewn ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... magistrate is possessed of almost unlimited powers. No one can hamper him, no one can give him orders. The entire police force is at his disposal. One word from him and twenty agents, or a hundred if need be, search Paris, ransack France, or explore Europe. If there be any one whom he believes able to throw light upon an obscure point, he simply sends an order to that person to appear before him, and the man must come even if he lives ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... was discovered, which has created no small stir in the antiquarian world, and merits a brief description. Nothing was known of its existence previously; and this is an instance of the delightful surprises which explorers have in store for them, when they ransack the buried treasure-house of the earth, and reveal the relics which have been so ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... I daresay, above twenty minutes contemplating this singular crystal fossil of a ship, and considering whether I should go down to her and ransack her for whatever might answer my turn. But she looked so darkly secret under her white garb, and there was something so terrible in the aspect of the motionless snow-clad sentinel who leaned upon the rail, that my heart failed ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd, Have to the port of Athens sent their ships Fraught with the ministers and instruments Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore Their crownets regal from the Athenian bay Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen, With wanton Paris sleeps—and that's the quarrel. To Tenedos they come, And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Their war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... in the morning, nearly half-past ten. The young man hurried downstairs and began to ransack the pantry. He did not want to be long away from the upper room. Once, as he was stooping to search the refrigerator for butter and milk he paused in his work and thought he heard a sound at the front door, but then all seemed still, and he hurriedly put a few ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... bethink oneself; collect one's thoughts; revolve in the mind, turn over in the mind, run over in the mind; chew the cud upon, sleep upon; take counsel of one's pillow, advise with one's pillow. rack one's brains, ransack one's brains, crack one's brains, beat one's brains, cudgel one's brains; set one's brain to work, set one's wits to work. harbor an idea, entertain an idea, cherish an idea, nurture an idea &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... vaguely. Then a rush of blood went over his whole face, up to his forehead. His dreamy dark eyes looked suddenly anything but dreamy. "Good Heavens!" he gasped. "What have you got there?" and began to ransack all the pockets of his waistcoat and coat until he found the twin of the book he'd given me. "This is what I meant you to see," he said ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the air and there is a shower of shrapnel above us. Meteorites flash and scatter in fearful flight in the heart of the yellow clouds. Revolving missiles rush through the heavens to break and burn upon the bill, to ransack it and exhume the old bones of men; and the thundering flames multiply themselves along ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the appropriateness of each class of sermons to its peculiar hearers; yet he could not altogether drive away the thought, how the generality of those who had on previous Sundays been his fellow-worshippers would open their blue Saxon eyes, and ransack their rustic brains, as to "what could ha' come to rector," if he were to indulge in Greek and Latin quotations, - somewhat after the following style. "And though this interpretation may in these days be disputed, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated minds have been sent from England to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous nations, with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure; it has been left to the broken-down tradesman, the scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the Manchester ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... victor's way, and his mailed heel crushed it as he passed. They had heard that arms were hidden and francs-tireurs sheltered there, and they had swooped down on it and held it hard and fast. Some were told off to search the chapel; some to ransack the dwellings; some to seize such food and bring such cattle as there might be left; some to seek out the devious paths that crossed and recrossed the field; and yet there still remained in the little street hundreds of armed men, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... which has created no small stir in the antiquarian world, and merits a brief description. Nothing was known of its existence previously; and this is an instance of the delightful surprises which explorers have in store for them, when they ransack the buried treasure-house of the earth, and reveal the relics which have been ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... kidnapped. He wants us badly. He will anticipate that one of us will go back to that house: to care for Kurgo's body, to get my belongings—for several reasons. So he will radio down—he probably can't come himself—for henchmen to station themselves at the house and to ransack it thoroughly for anything pertaining to me. The papers would fall ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!" he cried; "up, friend. Your life hangs trembling in the scales; up, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... as soon as she found herself face to face with the man to whom she was obliged to lie, she became uneasy, all her ideas melted like wax before a flame, her inventive and her reasoning faculties were paralysed, she might ransack her brain but would find only a void; still, she must say something, and there lay within her reach precisely the fact which she had wished to conceal, which, being the truth, was the one thing that had remained. She broke off from it a tiny ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... clerks, who may really be called men-of-letters, and who set about to search for that unknown human being with as much ardor as the mathematicians of the Bureau give to longitudes. They literally ransack the whole kingdom. At the first ray of hope all the post-offices in Paris are alert. Sometimes the receiver of a missing letter is amazed at the network of scrawled directions which covers both back ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... being his objects, he will not scruple to collect materials from all quarters. He will ransack the newest foreign publications, and extract from them whatever can serve his purpose. He will not forget that a work, which solicits the attention of many readers, must build its claim on the variety as well as copiousness ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... yet know there is a place under his lowest belly whither thou mayst plunge the blade; aim at this with thy sword, and thou shalt probe the snake to his centre. Thence go fearless up to the hill, drive the mattock, dig and ransack the holes; soon fill thy pouch with treasure, and bring back to the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... horse and put that sack over my head. They had mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they've done it! When you came in I was ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... would have been his first thought. But—it would need a stout-hearted criminal to go through the pockets of his victim, and if the motive were other than theft, it might be that the pearls and papers were still on the body. If Clo failed to find them elsewhere she would have to ransack those pockets. The thought was too horrible to dwell upon. Frantically she tossed over the contents of the suitcase, lifting and shaking every garment scattered on the bed. She peered under the pillows; she pulled out the drawers ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... many people have," she answered. "It's easy enough to pick up imitations in the second-hand shops, or to ransack country houses; but these pieces are all genuine and have been in the family for generations. There are three Chippendales that belonged to my grandfather on my mother's side, Colonel Styles, and this is a Sheraton. That mahogany table with the low-hanging leaves is a genuine Pembroke. Do you ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Aronnax," Captain Nemo then said. "You observe this confined bay? A month from now in this very place, the numerous fishing boats of the harvesters will gather, and these are the waters their divers will ransack so daringly. This bay is felicitously laid out for their type of fishing. It's sheltered from the strongest winds, and the sea is never very turbulent here, highly favorable conditions for diving work. Now let's put on our underwater ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... is so fully drawn in the First Book, that the Poet adds nothing to it in the Second. We were before told, that he was the first who taught Mankind to ransack the Earth for Gold and Silver, and that he was the Architect of Pandaemonium, or the Infernal Place, where the Evil Spirits were to meet in Council. His Speech in this Book is every way suitable to so depraved a Character. How proper is that Reflection, of their being ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... I glutted with conceit of this! Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please, Resolve[26] me of all ambiguities, Perform what desperate enterprise I will? I'll have them fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new-found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates; I'll have them read me strange philosophy, And tell the secrets of all foreign kings; I'll have them wall all Germany with brass, And make swift Rhine ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... planted by the learned Abdullatif at Bagdad, and the European paradises of Naples, Florence, Monza, Mannheim and Leyden to draw up plans and a particular description of the Oxford Physic Garden, by Magdalen College, as well as the plantations of Worcester, Trinity and St. John's Colleges; and to ransack the bookshops of that seat of learning for such works as might be procurable in no more difficult tongue than the Latin. In this way Captain Barker became possessed of a vast number of monkish herbals, Pliny's Historia ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this confusion that Napoleon again entered Moscow. He had allowed this pillage, hoping that his army, scattered over the ruins, would not ransack them in vain. But when he learned that the disorder increased; that the old guard itself was seduced; that the Russian peasants, who were at length allured thither with provisions, for which he caused them ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... other foreman, an hour later, as the two mounted loaned horses, "I reckon your big talk goes up in smoke. You're not the only director in this cattle company. Dell, ransack both our wagons to-day, and see if you can't unearth some dainties for this sick lad. No use looking in Straw's commissary; he never has anything to eat; Injuns won't go near ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... would prove but little protection, they were compelled to don them. Their hands were then bound, and they were then taken a short distance back into the woods, where they were fastened to trees. Then the desperadoes went back and began to ransack the stores. Ripping open boxes and bags they piled up a varied quantity of provisions, and even helped themselves to a quantity of clothing and blankets which the expedition had brought up to be left in cache for the following winter. They also tore open the canvas ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... damning and unanswerable. All the arts for inflaming popular passion under the pretext of "patriotism" would have been used, and we know that patriotism sometimes assumes strange disguises. The material would have been rich and easily accessible. Instead of having to ransack ancient numbers of Irish or American newspapers for incautious phrases dropped by Mr. Redmond or Mr. O'Brien in moments of unusual provocation, the speeches of Botha, Steyn, and De Wet, during the war, and even at the Peace Conference, would have been ready for the hoardings ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... a night like this!—hungry and cold!" exclaimed the lad, throwing off his Spanish cloak and tossing his cap to the hall table. "Come back, till she gets thoroughly warm, and I'll soon ransack the kitchen for eatables; a glass of Madeira now to begin with. Lady Mother, come and look at this little girl—it's a sin and a shame to see anything with a soul ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... minister of ruin? And thou, no less of gift divine, Sweet poison of misused wine! With freedom led to every part, And secret chamber of the heart, Dost thou thy friendly host betray, And shew thy riotous gang the way To enter in, with covert treason, O'erthrow the drowsy guard of reason, To ransack the abandon'd place, And revel there ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the livid corpse they have found at the bottom of the river. They seize it, feel it, clasp it in their arms; behold them, drunk with the desire to know; they no longer look with interest upon things, except to see them pass; they do nothing except doubt and test; they ransack the world as though they were God's spies; they sharpen their thoughts into arrows, and they give ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... security which renders the lives of the most unhappy in some measure agreable. Those Officers may under colour of law and the cloak of a general warrant, break thro' the sacred rights of the Domicil, ransack mens houses, destroy their securities, carry off their property, and with little danger to themselves commit ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... after our return to the anchorage, a party of officers and myself went to ransack an old Indian grave, which I had found on the summit of a neighbouring hill. Two immense stones, each probably weighing at least a couple of tons, had been placed in front of a ledge of rock about six feet high. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Cartillon, d'Artin," Ortez bowed. "Here at last we find rest and refreshment. Let a feast be spread in the great hall, ransack the place for good cheer. We've done brave work this glorious day, my lads, and a merry ending we'll have ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... awfully busy with my garden, and people are very kind in giving me things. To-morrow we go to the Rowans, and I am to ransack his garden! I do think the exchange of herbaceous perennials is one of the joys of life. You can hardly think how delicious it feels to garden after six months of frost and snow. Imagine my feelings when Mrs. Medley ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... the ponderous folio chronicles, the genuine quarto romances, and, a little above, a glittering row of thin, closely-squeezed, curiously-gilt, volumes of original plays. As we have finished our supper, let us—" "My friends," observed I, "not a finger upon a book to-night—to-morrow you may ransack at your pleasure. I wish to pursue the conversation commenced by Lysander, as we were strolling in the garden." "Agreed," replied Philemon,—"the quietness of the hour—the prospect, however limited, before us—(for I shall not fail to fix my eyes upon ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... 695; commune with oneself, bethink oneself; collect one's thoughts; revolve in the mind, turn over in the mind, run over in the mind; chew the cud upon, sleep upon; take counsel of one's pillow, advise with one's pillow. rack one's brains, ransack one's brains, crack one's brains, beat one's brains, cudgel one's brains; set one's brain to work, set one's wits to work. harbor an idea, entertain an idea, cherish an idea, nurture an idea &c. 453; take into one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Then from the clashes between popes and kings, Debate, like sparks from flints' collision, springs: As Jove's loud thunderbolts were forged by heat, The like our Cyclops on their anvils beat; 170 All the rich mines of learning ransack'd are, To furnish ammunition for this war: Uncharitable zeal our reason whets, And double edges on our passion sets; 'Tis the most certain sign the world's accursed, That the best things corrupted are the worst; 'Twas the corrupted light of knowledge ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... interesting objects, was most actively at work. At such moments, sensibility quickly furnishes similes, and the sublimated spirits combine images, which rising spontaneously, it is not necessary coldly to ransack the understanding or memory, till the laborious efforts of judgment exclude present sensations, and damp ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... To their belov'd Appointment flew; With busy search thro' ev'ry Class, Thro' ev'ry Rank of Men they pass, In ev'ry Class of Men they find Some Hearts corrupted to their Mind, Ev'ry Profession they explore, Ev'ry Profession gives them more; The higher Functions ransack'd, now Each vulgar Trade, each sweaty Brow Is search'd, and in them all were found, Some hollow, rotten, and unsound. In each depraved Bosom dwell These Sprites, nor miss their native Hell. ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... Rousseau having equipped him for the study of human society and government, he now, during his first sojourn at Auxonne (June, 1788—September, 1789), proceeds to ransack the records of the ancient and modern world. Despite ill-health, family troubles, and the outbreak of the French Revolution, he grapples with this portentous task. The history, geography, religion, and social customs of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... in a manner I like. Moreover, when I first declared my passion, it was not ill received by the lovely object who inspired it; but, just now, Leander has declared to me that he is preparing to deprive me of Celia; therefore let us make haste; ransack your brain for the speediest means to secure me possession of her; plan any tricks, stratagems, rogueries, inventions, to frustrate ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... women who have so generously allowed me to ransack their treasuries, filching here and there as I chose, always modestly declaiming against the existence of wit in ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... pleasantest occupation in the world to ransack the clothing of a skeleton, and he who was doing it could not help reflecting as he did so that it looked very much like a desecration and a robbing of the dead. To his great disappointment, however, he failed to discover anything which ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... suppose. Well, shall we go in? I have shown you all the wonders of the garden, and told you all the wonders connected with it of which I know aught. No doubt there would be other wonders more wonderful, if one could ransack the private history of all the Claverings for the last hundred years. I hope, Miss Burton, that any marvels which may attend your career here may be happy marvels." She then took Florence by the hand, and, drawing close to her, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... the young Greek persevere; since he might ransack Peter's books, without discovering a better secret for gaining power over the masses, than the "cleverness uncurbed by conscience," ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... writ against me, so long have I given him a lease of his life, and he hath only held it by my mercy; and now let him thank his friends for this heavy load of disgrace I lay upon him, since I do it but to show my sufficiency; and they urging what a triumph he had over me, hath made me ransack my standish more than ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... into the muzzles of three revolvers, held by two masked men, who stood looking over the footboard. Bidding them move at their peril, the man with two revolvers remained to guard the doctor and his wife, while the other began to ransack the room. As he did so, he carried on an easy, if not eloquent, dissertation upon the rights of man and the iniquitous conditions which made it necessary for the poor and oppressed to obtain by force, if they obtained at all, any share in the privileges and riches of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... them all the days of my life. If I am able to repay you by avenging you on some proud miscreant that hath done you any wrong, know that it is my office to help the weak, to revenge the wronged, and to punish traitors. Ransack your memory, and if you find anything of this sort for me to do, you have but to utter it, and I promise you, by the Order of Knighthood which I have received, to procure you satisfaction to your ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... the City would presently be affected—all will have to run the risk of contagion. There are thousands of women now who voluntarily enter the houses as nurses for a small rate of pay. Even robbers, they say, will enter and ransack the houses of the dead in search of plunder. It will be a shame indeed then if one should shrink from doing so when possibly one might ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... which may be suppos'd to have affected the whole Set. When the Players took upon them to publish his Works intire, every Theatre was ransack'd to supply the Copy; and Parts collected, which had gone thro' as many Changes as Performers, either from Mutilations or Additions made to them. Hence we derive many Chasms and Incoherences in the Sense and Matter. Scenes were frequently transposed, and ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... he never mentioned no names—never. He used to rave a great deal about two orphans and a will, and he would ransack the bed, and pull up the sheets, and look under the pillows, as if he thought it was there. Oh, he acted very strange, but never mentioned no names. I used to think he had something in his trunk, he was so very special about it. He was better the day they took him off; and the trunk went with him—he ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... said the perfumer, taking the chemist's hand. "This treasure has no value except the time that I have spent in finding it. We had to ransack all Germany to find it on China paper before lettering. I knew that you wished for it and that your occupations did not leave you time to search for it; I have been your commercial traveller, that is all. Accept therefore, not a paltry engraving, but efforts, anxieties, despatches ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... and, the stage being thus left vacant, we hear a latch-key turning in the outer door. A lady in evening dress enters, goes up to the bureau at the back of the stage, and calmly proceeds to break it open and ransack it. While she is thus burglariously employed, Lord Eric enters, and cannot refrain from a slight expression of surprise. The lady takes the situation with humorous calmness, they fall into conversation, and it is manifest ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Borkins," he said abruptly. "We've known each other a long time. I shouldn't like anything to happen to the chap while he's in my service, that's all. Get out now and make enquiries in every direction. Have Dimmock go down to the village. And ransack every public house round about. If you can't find any trace of him—" his lips tightened for a moment, "then I'll fetch in the police. I'll get the finest detective in the land on this thing, I'll get Cleek himself if it ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... heard she was to go to Bergen, she regularly turned the house upside down. There was nothing good enough for her in the whole shop; there was not a shelf that she didn't ransack to find the finery and frippery that ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... flame spreads abroad, and the sudden darkness as well that is hurled by their clouds of excretion. Other shadows go and come on the ground about me; and then I hear in the air the plunge of beating wings, and cries so fierce that I feel them ransack my head. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... clear the old place out. The thing was necessary; yet I felt as if it were a kind of sacrilege. To disturb the old dust upon the library-shelves and select such books as I cared to keep; to sort and destroy all kinds of hoarded papers; to ransack desks that had never been unlocked since the hands that last closed them were laid to rest for ever, constituted my share of the work. Hortense superintended the rest. As for the household goods, we resolved to keep nothing, save a few old family portraits and ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... able to live, a service exactly similar to that which Greece, at the time of the great Asiatic invasions, rendered to the mother of this civilization. But, while the service is similar, the act surpasses all comparison. We may ransack history in vain for aught to approach it in grandeur. The magnificent sacrifice at Thermopylae, which is perhaps the noblest action in the annals of war, is illumined with an equally heroic but less ideal light, for it was less disinterested and more material. Leonidas and ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... fancy dress. Few people will trouble to discover the most convenient forms and materials, and endeavour to simplify them and reduce them to beautiful forms, while endless enterprising tradesmen will be alert for a perpetual succession of striking novelties. The women will ransack the ages for becoming and alluring anachronisms, the men will appear in the elaborate uniforms of "games," in modifications of "court" dress, in picturesque revivals of national costumes, in epidemic fashions of the ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... and painful prize! Which quickly drew me to that verdant wood, Doom'd to mislead me midway in life's course; The world I since have ransack'd part by part, For rhymes, or stones, or sap of simples new, Which yet might give me back the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... prog,(3) Will oftentimes ransack the bog, To finnd a sneel, or weel-fed frog, To give relief; But I prefer a leg of hog, Or ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... abroad till it grew a joy Universal—It even reached And thrilled the town till the Church was stirred Into suspecting that wrong was wrong!— And it stayed awake as the preacher preached A Real "Love"-text that he had not long To ransack for in ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... which Mr. Ferret held with his munificent client and her interesting protegee, if conference that may be called in which the astute attorney enacted the part of listener only, scarcely once opening his thin, cautious lips. In vain did his eager brain silently ransack the whole armory of the law; no weapon could he discern which afforded the slightest hope of fighting a successful battle with a legally-appointed guardian for the custody of his ward. And yet Mr. Ferret felt, as he looked ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the countryside—"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They'll ransack that castle," he ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sack, we ransack to the utmost sands Of native kingdoms, and of foreign lands: We travel sea and soil; we pry, we prowl, We progress, and we ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... with a belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the gifts of Providence not to fall in with his little plans. Of coorse we'll mut'ny till all's dry. Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the company officers, ransack the arsenal, and then—Boys, did he tell you what next? He told me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we're to join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip Singh and ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... most profound astonishment on noticing any piece of furniture freshly upholstered in her well-appointed apartment. You must immediately make her explain to you the advantages of the change; and then you must ransack your mind to discover whether there be not some underhand ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... their courage comes again, and arousing themselves they ransack the woods for a mile around till they find that owl, and if they do not kill him they at least worry him half to death and drive ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... upon the table, he left them to wait upon themselves, while he went off to ransack the pantry soon to return with a sufficiency of viands, and savoury enough to satisfy men who had just come out of the Acordada. There was cold mutton, ham, and venison, maize bread, and "guesas de Guatemala," ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... whistling tears the air and there is a shower of shrapnel above us. Meteorites flash and scatter in fearful flight in the heart of the yellow clouds. Revolving missiles rush through the heavens to break and burn upon the bill, to ransack it and exhume the old bones of men; and the thundering flames multiply themselves along ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... soldiers' prey and rapine brought in riot; Men took delight in jewels, houses, plate, And scorn'd old sparing diet, and ware robes Too light for women; Poverty, who hatch'd Rome's greatest wits,[593] was loath'd, and all the world Ransack'd for gold, which breeds the world['s] decay; And then large limits had their butting lands; The ground, which Curius and Camillus till'd, 170 Was stretched unto the fields of hinds unknown. Again, this people ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... prisoners were come, and Sir Gawaine and his fellows gat the field and put the Romans to flight, and after returned and came with their fellowship in such wise that no man of worship was lost of them, save that Sir Gawaine was sore hurt. Then the king did do ransack his wounds and comforted him. And thus was the beginning of the first journey of the Britons and Romans, and there were slain of the Romans more than ten thousand, and great joy and mirth was made that night in the host of ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... was made here and—at Fredericks'. His studio was on the corner of Ninth Street up to a few years ago. It's a trail after my own mind. If that negative is in existence, I'll find it, if I have to ransack half the photograph-studios in town. About how old do you think ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... I will consider these things, and appease the mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, Thrasyllus, to make equals of this soft-tongued race. Why, these Ionians, do they not enjoy themselves in perpetual holidays?—spend days at the banquet?—ransack earth and sea for dainties and for perfumes?—and shall they be the equals of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome, that we may well have no fear of death? I hate these sleek ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... A COLONY AT QUEBEC. Several years later, in 1541, Cartier and others attempted to establish a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. As it was hard to get good colonists to settle in the cold climate so far north, the leaders were allowed to ransack the prisons for debtors and criminals to make up the necessary numbers. They selected the neighborhood of the cliffs where Cartier had wintered in 1535, where Quebec now stands, as the most suitable place for their colony. But the settlers were ill-fitted for the ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... forces which all alien things must yield to till they take the American cast. It is almost dismaying, that physiognomy, before it familiarizes itself anew; and in the brief first moment while it is yet objective, you ransack your conscience for any sins you may have committed in your absence from it and make ready to do penance for them. I felt almost as if I had brought the dirty streets with me, and were guilty of having left ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... death of the representative MOTHER of our race and age that bids us wrap our mourning robes around us. For any record of such another we ransack in vain the treasure stores of all history. She is the only mother that ever reigned in her own right over any potent realm; and certainly over our own. Queen Mary of unhappy memory, died childless, and her more fortunate sister, "Good Queen Bess," went down ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... and made to understand by signs that they must not move on peril of their lives. A Tuck was placed at the helm, and the tartane's head turned towards the pirate captor; and all the others, who were not employed otherwise, began to ransack the vessel and feast on the provisions. Some hams were thrown overboard, with shouts of evident scorn as belonging to the unclean beast, but the wine was eagerly drank, and Maitre Hebert uttered a wail of dismay as he saw five Moors gorging large pieces ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say the orders and decrees promulgated, "is intended to repress anti-revolutionaries, to execute, whenever it is found necessary, revolutionary laws and measures for public safety," that is to say, "to guard those who are shut up, arrest 'suspects,' demolish chateaux, pull down belfries, ransack vestries for gold and silver objects, seize fine horses and carriages," and especially "to seek for private stores and monopolies," in short, to exercise manual constraint and strike every one on the spot with physical terror.—We readily see what sort of soldiers ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of pine in the fire, and started one of the stable boys up a ladder by its light to ransack the pigeon-cote, and in a very little while both a chicken and a bird were broiled and set upon the kitchen-table upon a spotless cloth, and the plume of lily-white celery, and the smoking toast in velvet cream, warmed the Judge's ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... are, M. Aronnax," said Captain Nemo. "You see that enclosed bay? Here, in a month will be assembled the numerous fishing boats of the exporters, and these are the waters their divers will ransack so boldly. Happily, this bay is well situated for that kind of fishing. It is sheltered from the strongest winds; the sea is never very rough here, which makes it favourable for the diver's work. We will now put on our dresses, and ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... autumn of 1878, while on a visit at Rougham Hall, Norfolk, the seat of Mr. Charles North, my kind host drew my attention to some large boxes of manuscripts, which he told me nobody knew anything about, but which I was at liberty to ransack to my heart's content. I at once dived into one of the boxes, and then spent half the night in examining some of its treasures. The chest is one of many, constituting in their entirety a complete apparatus for the history ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... he, in a low voice, 'you may ransack the town, as I've done, and get all your keys together. I want to see if you can find one, or contrive one with any locksmith's help, that will fit into that lock. I'll give you a month to try it. I'd give another ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... arguments, who would cut a very poor figure with those same arguments among those who are on the other side. Would you find out for yourself from books? What learning you will need! What languages you must learn; what libraries you must ransack; what an amount of reading must be got through! Who will guide me in such a choice? It will be hard to find the best books on the opposite side in any one country, and all the harder to find those on all sides; when found they would ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... methods—the spontaneous, the carefully perfected, the oral, the written—heretofore explained in this chapter. In your final work on a passage you should aim at a faultless rendition, and should spend time and ransack the lexicons rather than ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... He counted on stopping at the Feroe Islands, whither the north wind might have carried the castaways; then, if he was convinced that they had not been received in any of the ports of that locality, he would continue his search beyond the Northern Ocean, ransack the whole western coast of Norway as far as Bodoe, the place nearest the scene of the shipwreck; and, if necessary, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... must versify your very best, To sing how they ransack the East and the West, To tell how they plunder the North and the South For food for the stomach and zest for the mouth! Such savoury stews, and such odorous dishes, Such soups, and (at Calais) such capital fishes! With ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... little ones cry for hunger, so I ransack the ruins and bring away my spoils. Eat, Kinder, eat ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... imagination, sublimity, character? seek them in the Rape of the Lock, the Fables of Dryden, the Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day, and Absalom and Achitophel: you will discover in these two poets only, all for which you must ransack innumerable metres, and God only knows how many writers of the day, without finding a tittle of the same qualities,—with the addition, too, of wit, of which the latter have none. I have not, however, forgotten Thomas Brown the Younger, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... allow no freedom of thought of her or service of her other than their own, take to the cudgel and the rifle, and join sectarian orders or lodges to ensure that Ireland will be made in their own ignoble image. Those who love Ireland nobly desire for her the highest of human destinies. They would ransack the ages and accumulate wisdom to make Irish life seem as noble in men's eyes as any the world has known. The better minds in every race, eliminating passion and prejudice, by the exercise of the imaginative reason have revealed to their countrymen ideals ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... born seven months after my marriage, by one of those fatalities that give ground for shameful accusations! I shall ask my aunt to carry the certificate in her pocket, until I can deposit it in some place of safety. The duke would ransack my rooms for it, and the whole police are at his service. Government refuses nothing to a man high in favor. If Joseph saw me going to Mademoiselle de Vaudrey's apartments at this hour, the whole house would hear of it. ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... deportations. If, fifty years ago, the conscience of the world revolted against black slavery, what should its feelings be today when it is confronted with this new and most appalling form of white slavery? We should in vain ransack the chronicles of history to find, even in ancient times, crimes similar to this one. For the Jews were at war with Babylon, the Gauls were at war with Rome. Belgium did not wage war against Germany. She merely refused to ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... strange visit? Was he to start back upon his homeward journey without an opportunity to bid his phenomenal hosts good-bye? He could not bear the thought. Dorothy at all events must be found. He would search the grounds and ransack the house. Surely she must be somewhere within reach of his voice. But then she was so strange, so different from any woman he had ever known. How could he tell, perhaps she had left the old place forever! Henley had not realized until now what a deep and overpowering dependence ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... boy," said Corentin, to the gendarme, "and take him away by himself. And shut up that girl, too," pointing to Catherine. "As for you, Peyrade, search for papers," adding in his ear, "Ransack everything, spare nothing.—Monsieur l'abbe," he said, confidentially, "I have an important communication to make to you"; and he ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... somewhat oftener to my library. It is in the chief approach to my house, so that under my eyes are my garden, my base-court, my yard, and even the best rooms of my house. There, without order or method, I can turn over and ransack now one book and now another. Sometimes I muse, sometimes save; and walking up and down I indite and register these my humours, these my conceits. It is placed in a third storey of a tower. The lowermost is my chapel, the second ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... men say, Thou art a knight on Gloriana's quest. Oh, lay that golden unction to thy soul, This is no piracy, but glorious war, Waged for thy country and for all mankind, Therefore put out to sea without one fear, Ransack their El Dorados of the West, Pillage their golden galleons, sap their strength Even at its utmost fountains; let them know That there is blood, not water, in our veins. Sail on, my captain, to the glorious end, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... to sleep fell into conversation about strong impressions. They were led to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that there have been ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... loads of it being taken to the market. Another troop comes to La Force, to deliver those imprisoned for debt; a third breaks into the Garde Meuble, carrying away valuable arms and armour. Mobs assemble before the hotel of Madame de Breteuil and the Palais-Bourbon, which they intend to ransack, in order to punish their proprietors. M. de Crosne, one of the most liberal and most respected men of Paris, but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenant of the police, is pursued, escaping with difficulty, and his hotel is sacked.—During the night between the 13th ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... history one consults titles, hunts up medals, deciphers antique inscriptions to determine the epochs of revolutions amongst mankind, and to fix the date of events in the moral world, so, in natural history, we must ransack the archives of the universe, drag from the entrails of the earth the olden monuments, gather together their ruins and collect into a body of proofs all the indications of physical changes that can guide us back to the different ages of nature. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... nerves have been adapted to the circumstances of our early life as a race in tropical forests; and we still retain a marked liking for sweets of every sort. Not content with our strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, apples, pears, cherries, plums and other northern fruits, we ransack the world for dates, figs, raisins, and oranges. Indeed, in spite of our acquired meat-eating propensities, it may be fairly said that fruits and seeds (including wheat, rice, peas, beans, and other grains and pulse) still form by far the most important element in the food-stuffs ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... democratic people into no such excesses. The love of well-being is there displayed as a tenacious, exclusive, universal passion; but its range is confined. To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of: but to add a few roods of land to your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be always making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... when he wakes to-morrow and finds it gone—what then? You know this Governor of Cesena well enough to be assured that he would ransack the castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... this blessed day, when nought But Saturnalian joys should fill him) Your friend Catullus such a set Of murderous authors; but the debt I'll pay, be even with you yet— For no perfidious friend I spare. At early dawn, ere the sun shine, I Will rise, and ransack shop and stall, Collect your Caesii and Aquini, And that Suffenus: and with care And diligence, will have all sent To you, for a like punishment. Hence, poets! with your jingling chimes: Hence, miserables! halt and lame; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... gen'lems, sah, and of co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah, not even in dey vittles, sah, even if dey was pie, which dey wa'n't, sah, fob dis we'y day Mistah Falk he wants pie and stew'd he come, and me and he, sah, we sho' ransack dis galley, sah, and try like we can, not even two of us togetheh, sah, can sca' up a piece of pie foh Mistah Falk, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the action of the grand jury, which was soon to convene. Both he and his family had foreseen the event, and he had made the necessary arrangements for the conduct of his business. Humiliating as his arrest was, they all bore it with Spartan courage, and prepared to ransack the earth, if need be, to establish ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... of winter, in January or February, I happen, out in the fields, to ransack the Spider's dwelling, after the rain, snow and frost have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the bastion at the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of vigour, still carrying her family. This vehicular upbringing lasts five or six months at least, without ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the front of it came down and it changed into a writing desk, with an intriguing array of small drawers and pigeonholes at the back of it, and a suspicion of alluring and unattainable treasures in every separate receptacle. To ransack all of these was Keith's most audacious dream, but when the dream came true at last, it was fraught with no ecstasy of realization, for he was a middle-aged man, and in the room behind him ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... treat of right and wrong, because those are invariably the fame:)—nor is it less attended to by the Critics in their poetical Essays, or by men of Eloquence in every species and every part of their public debates. For what would be more out of character, than to use a lofty style, and ransack every topic of argument, when we are speaking only of a petty trespass in some inferior court? Or, on the other hand, to descend to any puerile subtilties, and speak with the indifference and simplicity of a frivolous narrative, when we ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... incredibly short time in which to walk from Hanover Square to Regent's Park without the chance of cutting across the squares, to look for a man, whose whereabouts you could not determine to within twenty yards or so, to have an argument with him, murder him, and ransack his pockets. And then there was ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... at his word and began to ransack the house, while Mordecai and Leah, paralyzed with fear, great beads of perspiration starting from their foreheads, sat idly by and watched the work of destruction. Not an article of furniture was left ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... districts inhabited only by the roughest and poorest classes, entirely unmolested; and that we trusted much on many occasions to the honesty of the people, and never found cause to repent our trust—I cannot but feel that it would be an ungracious act to ransack newspapers and Reports to furnish materials for recording in detail, the vices of a population whom I have only personally known by their virtues. Let you and I, reader, leave off with the same pleasant impressions of the Cornish people—you, whose only object is to hear, and I whose ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... whilst distraught ambition compasses, And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives, And is deceiv'd: whilst man doth ransack man And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... of the break. His mind hadn't been on the job, anyway—it had been on the Egyptian cat. For perhaps the hundredth time he asked, "Why is the cat valuable? Why would anyone want it enough to stage that scene at El Mouski and then ransack our room?" ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... official papers here," he said, after another short ransack; "there must have been some, if this desk is the one. Have you dared to delude me by showing ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... think I've a snug little project in view: I have felt for you long, and have ransack'd my brain To relieve you from so much embarrassing pain. To-morrow our principal tools shall repair To this spot, to implore you to stay where you are: Little Jancourt, you know, has a tear at command, The rest shall ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... went out to attend to a business meeting, and Clarence was left in possession of the study. He locked the door, and began to ransack his father's desk. At length he ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... and day. Find out where he lives and what he does; and ransack his room if possible. He is either an innocent man or a sleek rascal. Report to me this time ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Munster undergoing the manipulation of the new Earl of Cork, there remained as a field for the Parsons Commission only the Midland Counties and Connaught. Of these they made the most in the shortest space of time. A horde of clerkly spies were employed under the name of "Discoverers," to ransack old Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with such good success, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... loftily, "you don't expect to find him in here, I suppose? Of course, if your duty carries you so far as to ransack a lady's room, I ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... subsist on its own stock: he who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... I, "give me a man's rig-out—a jersey and some breeches and a cap—quick," and, while the old fellow stared and whistled softly, I helped to ransack his box; and in a trice I had dressed myself, putting my pistols, my papers, and my money in my new clothes; but leaving everything else in a ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... of the English language, the birth of a Littre, who would devote his life to this work, was not waited for. Volunteers were appealed to, and a thousand men offered their services, spontaneously and gratuitously, to ransack the libraries, to take notes, and to accomplish in a few years a work which one man could not complete in his lifetime. In all branches of human intelligence the same spirit is breaking forth, and we should have a very limited knowledge of humanity ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... into the face of the Federal colonel and saw that it was an unusually kindly one. "We are defending this home, sir; that's all. I reckon those fellows who just ran off wanted to ransack it." ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... every breast. My dear friend, nobody preaches like him. Else religion would be to every one just what it should be, the most valuable and reliable friend of men. He explained the gospel of the day without fanaticism, yet with a grand simplicity which needed not to ransack the world for its wisdom, its figures of speech, or its scholastic arts. It was no religious study, hurled in its three divisions at the heart of stony sinners; nor was it what some would call a current article of pulpit manufacture. It was no cold, heathen, moral lecture, which sought ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... a month and ransack the islands, the cataracts and volcanoes completely, and write twenty or thirty letters, for which they pay as much money as I would get if I ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... those two decent fellows to meet you, with orders to scatter bits of orange-peel and draw crosses and circles, in short, to mark out your road to this place.... Why, you look quite bewildered! What is it? Perhaps you don't recognize me? Lupin.... Arsene Lupin.... Ransack your memory.... Doesn't the name remind you ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... grass beneath their feet that cheated the miles; their discoveries, always together, amid the farms—Griffons, Rocketts, Burnt House, Gale Anstey, and the Home Farm, where Iggulden of the blue smock-frock would waylay them, and they would ransack the old house once more; the long wet afternoons when, they tucked up their feet on the bedroom's deep window-sill over against the apple-trees, and talked together as never till then had they found time to talk—these things contented her soul, and ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... to a black cord, "this is the key of my toilet casket. Open it and you will find a bundle of documents tied together with a blue ribbon, take them. All through my illness I trembled at the thought that they might ransack my things and find them, and when I came to myself I was worrying myself with the idea that I might perhaps have spoken about these papers in my delirium. Oh! it would have been frightful if my relations had seized them. Take them, quickly, before Clementina returns. I must conceal everything, ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... in this was very various, so that at one time guineas seemed to be dropping out of my pockets, whereas at others I might ransack them through without finding so much as a silver penny. And according to the state of my fortunes, so did I prosper in Marian's regard; and in this ill-state of my affairs I grew reckless, and drank to drive away better thoughts, and so came ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... vain to find A simile[2] for womankind, A simile, I mean, to fit 'em, In every circumstance to hit 'em.[3] Through every beast and bird I went, I ransack'd every element; And, after peeping through all nature, To find so whimsical a creature, A cloud[4] presented to my view, And straight this parallel I drew: Clouds turn with every wind about, They keep us in suspense and doubt, Yet, oft perverse, like womankind, Are seen to scud against the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... have always been burned before we separated. Such letters as I have had from France, I have always destroyed as soon as I have read them. Perilous stuff of that sort should never be left about. No; they may ransack the place from top to bottom, and nothing will be found that could not be read aloud, without harm, in the marketplace ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... of these, as if it were for this very purpose, and under a presence of searching for and receiving the gold, he sent a centurion and a guard of soldiers; who, the set day being come, rose all at once, and at the very self-same time fell upon them, and proceeded to ransack the cities; so that in one hour a hundred and fifty thousand persons were made slaves, and threescore and ten cities sacked. Yet what was given to each soldier, out of so vast a destruction and utter ruin, amounted to no more than eleven drachmas; so that ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... with my experiments, work, I did, I find now that I come to ransack my impressions, see a great deal of the great world during those eventful years; I had a near view of the machinery by which an astounding Empire is run, rubbed shoulders and exchanged experiences ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Gudyill associated himself with a party so much to his taste, pretty much as Davy, in the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, mingles in the revels of his master, Justice Shallow. He ran down to the cellar at the risk of breaking his neck, to ransack some private catacomb, known, as he boasted, only to himself, and which never either had, or should, during his superintendence, renden forth a bottle of its contents to any one ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... part of an hour, in pursuance of her husband's counsel, the Mistress sat and waited for the prodigal's return. Then, surreptitiously, she made a round of the house; sent a man to ransack the stables, telephoned to the gate lodge, and finally came into the Master's study, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... a hasty hand, as if he wished to get the work quickly over, to ransack drawers and boxes. Whenever one or the other had been searched in vain, he clapped his hand to his breast and muttered: 'God be thanked!' and appeared as if his mind were in some measure relieved of a burden which oppressed it. At length ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... trellis work, and it was these which she had just begun to cut out. Though Tilling was noted for the ingenuity with which its more fashionable ladies devised novel and quaint effects in their dress in an economical manner, Diva felt sure, ransack her memory though she might, that nobody had thought of ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... to follow into the swamp. For my own part, I wished to stay behind, but was told that such a course was attended with danger, as the Indians would most likely emerge from another part of the hammock, and endeavour to seize the horses, and ransack the waggons. This decided my adopting the least of the two evils, although I fully expected we should have a battle. After penetrating for I should think upwards of two miles, sometimes up to our knees in ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... gold! 'twas the lust of wealth that urged my hand to ravish the grave. This know; but none hereafter, I ween, will be fain to ransack Fafnir's lair." ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... have to search your rooms, sir. I am prepared to search every room in the Albany! Our man seems to have gone for the leads; but unless he's left more marks outside than in, or we find him up there, I shall have the entire building to ransack." ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... up and ransack that old cabin," announced Bonner, starting toward the willows. The crowd held back. "I'll go alone if you're afraid to come," he went on. "It's my firm belief that you didn't see anything and the noise you boys heard was ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... packed our portmanteaus, and sat down to the intellectual repast. It was a feast, and we enjoyed it. I always have enjoyed the Richmond editorials. If I were a poet, I should study them for epithets. Exhausting the dictionary, their authors ransack heaven, earth, and the other place, and into one expression throw such a concentration of scorn, hate, fury, or exultation as is absolutely stunning to a man of ordinary nerves. Talk of their being bridled! They never had a bit in their mouths. Before the war they ran wild, and now they ride rough-shod ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... to it?"... I would ransack the phases of my development from the first shy unveiling of a hidden wonder to the last extremity as a man will go through muddled account books ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the dirt of floor and passage. To those who had time to think, a sad, heart-rending sight, pitiful evidence of the degrading influence of war. During the first year of the struggle there was not a man in the British army who would have pushed a woman aside to ransack the sacred corners of her chamber. But war's brutal influence in time blunted the finer instincts. How could it be otherwise? The longer a struggle is protracted the fiercer and more bestial it will become, until at last familiarity ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... above twenty minutes contemplating this singular crystal fossil of a ship, and considering whether I should go down to her and ransack her for whatever might answer my turn. But she looked so darkly secret under her white garb, and there was something so terrible in the aspect of the motionless snow-clad sentinel who leaned upon the rail, that my heart failed me, and I very easily persuaded ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the fox, "Now, my friend, ransack that cunning brain of yours for one of your thousand ruses. Fetch down from your sleeve one of those certain stratagems. As for me, this is my dodge." So saying, he bounded to a tall tree and climbed to ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... is the profit side of the account; you say not a word of the cost of it all. First, if there was a whisper of a new piece (no matter how bad the weather), one had to ransack all the garrets in Paris, until one had found the author; then to get a reading of the play, and adroitly to insinuate that there was a part in it which would be rendered in a superior manner by a certain person of my acquaintance.—"And by whom, if you please?"—"By whom? a pretty question! ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... they may detect a depredator by his sickness. Or, perhaps, we should understand the idea of the hidden tapu otherwise, as a politic device to spread uneasiness and extort confessions: so that, when a man is ailing, he shall ransack his brain for any possible offence, and send at once for any proprietor whose rights he has invaded. "Had you hidden a tapu?" we may conceive him asking: and I cannot imagine the proprietor gainsaying it; and that is perhaps the strangest feature of the system—that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... notions in acquiring an insight into new things is a natural tendency or drift of the mind. As soon as we see something new and desire to understand it, at once we involuntarily begin to ransack our old stock of ideas to discover anything in our previous experience which corresponds to this or is like it. For whatever is like it or has an analogy to it, or serves the same uses, will explain this new thing, though ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... him as a boy, I was walking up Fifth Avenue, when I saw a man on the other side of the street, more than a block away, coming toward me, whose gait arrested my attention as something I had known long before. Who could it be? I thought, and began to ransack my memory for a clew. I had seen that gait before. As the man came opposite me I saw he was Jay Gould. That walk in some subtle way differed from the walk of any other man I had known. It is a curious psychological fact that the ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... once for that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace of my poor ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... de Yankees. Don't 'member dat they was so bad. You know they say even de devil ain't as black as he is painted. De Yankees did take off all de mules, cows, hogs, and sheep, and ransack de smoke-house, but they never burnt a thing at our place. Folks wonder at dat. Some say it was 'cause General Bratton was ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... serious countenance—no smiles, no overacting, and I promise you success! Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!' he cried; 'up, friend; your life hangs trembling in ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long with rank and sighing weeds o'erspread, Ransack'd resign, perforce, their mortal mould: From ruffian fangs, escape not e'en the dead, Racked from repose, in search ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest. "Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air, with a sound ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... have dearly liked to take another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the countryside—"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They'll ransack that castle," ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a most profound astonishment on noticing any piece of furniture freshly upholstered in her well-appointed apartment. You must immediately make her explain to you the advantages of the change; and then you must ransack your mind to discover whether there be not some underhand ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... list she handed me, and wondered what Harry, who had to visit Vancouver, would say when he found I had pledged him to ransack the dry-goods stores for all kinds of fabrics. Still, I felt I should have faced much more than my comrades' remonstrances to please Grace Carrington then, as she stood beside me, glorified as it were ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... you see. Yes, sir-we were very exact. Our vulgar people, you see-I mean such as have got up by trade, and that sort of thing-went to a vast expense in sending to England a man of great learning and much aforethought, to ransack heraldry court and trace out their families. Well, he went, lived very expensively, spent several years abroad, and being very clever in his way, returned, bringing them all pedigrees of the very best kind. With only two exceptions, he traced them all down into noble blood. These two, the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... They have evidently taken de Soyecourt by surprise. She is yonder in that hell outside and will inevitably be captured by its most lustful devil—or else be murdered. I am here like a trapped rat, impotent, waiting to be killed, which Cazaio's men will presently attend to when they ransack the place and find me. And ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... much to his taste, pretty much as Davy, in the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, mingles in the revels of his master, Justice Shallow. He ran down to the cellar at the risk of breaking his neck, to ransack some private catacomb, known, as he boasted, only to himself, and which never either had, or should, during his superintendence, renden forth a bottle of its contents to any one but a real ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of his life, and he hath only held it by my mercy; and now let him thank his friends for this heavy load of disgrace I lay upon him, since I do it but to show my sufficiency; and they urging what a triumph he had over me, hath made me ransack my standish more ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... had time to think, a sad, heart-rending sight, pitiful evidence of the degrading influence of war. During the first year of the struggle there was not a man in the British army who would have pushed a woman aside to ransack the sacred corners of her chamber. But war's brutal influence in time blunted the finer instincts. How could it be otherwise? The longer a struggle is protracted the fiercer and more bestial it will become, until at last familiarity with the final ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... decoration." But Napoleon, a man whose life was steeped in battle and human bloodshed, seems by a strange contrast to have had a particular fancy for the quiet devotional art of the Umbrian master. His commissioner, one Tinet by name, had orders to ransack Perugia, and six cartloads of her treasured paintings, drawn by oxen, left the city for Paris. One altar-piece, that of the Magistrates' Chapel, was nearly forgotten, but remembered at the last moment, and included. But even so, the terrible conqueror who held Italy beneath his feet ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... fellows to meet you, with orders to scatter bits of orange-peel and draw crosses and circles, in short, to mark out your road to this place.... Why, you look quite bewildered! What is it? Perhaps you don't recognize me? Lupin.... Arsene Lupin.... Ransack your memory.... Doesn't the name remind you ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... me with an indulgent smile,—"for a clever man, you are really TOO foolish! Can't you see that you have betrayed my whereabouts to Sebastian? I crept away secretly, like a thief in the night, giving no name or place; and, having the world to ransack, he might have found it hard to track me; for HE had not YOUR clue of the Basingstoke letter—nor your reason for seeking me. But now that YOU have followed me openly, with your name blazoned forth in the company's passenger-lists, and your traces left plain in hotels and stages across the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... my haversack." The Cat replied, "I do not lack, Though with but one provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better." In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. "Now," said the Cat, "your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine." With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The Fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found. A hundred times he falsified. The nose of every hound Was here, and there, and everywhere, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... even from the native point of view. We had long since learned the force of the Chinese proverb that, "in order to avoid suspicion you must not live behind closed doors"; and in consequence had always recognized the common prerogative to ransack our private quarters and our luggage, so long as nothing was seriously disturbed. We never objected, either, to their wetting our paper windows with their tongues, so that they might noiselessly slit a hole in them with their exceptionally long finger nails, although we did ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... should persevere in their delusion. What—in the name of the Bend Sinister—have they to do with the earlier Harrys or Edwards, or the charge of the Templars at Ascalon, or the days of the Saxon Heptarchy? Are they called upon by some irrepressible impulse to ransack the pages of English history for a "situation," or to crib from the Chronicles of Froissart? Cannot they let the old warriors rest in peace, without summoning them, like the Cid, from their honoured graves, again ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... relented and bustled out to ransack the pantry. Having demolished a joint and a loaf, young John Spencer Cockrell was in a mood much less melancholy. In fact, when he swung the axe behind the fence of hewn palings, he was humming the refrain of that wicked ditty: "Yo, Ho, with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... regardless of Satan as to taunt him with the mode in which he executed his promise to teach his vassal dancing. The following specimen of raillery is worth commemoration:—"What, Satan! is this the dancing that Richard gave himself to thee for? &c. Canst thou dance no better? &c. Ransack the old records of all past times and places in thy memory; canst thou not there find out some better way of trampling? Pump thine invention dry; cannot the universal seed-plot of subtile wiles and stratagems spring up one new method of cutting capers? Is this the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... from the ordinary pass laws; but if his wife, who has had a better schooling and enjoyed an older civilization than he, were to go and reside in the "Free" State with her daughters, all of them would be forced to carry passes on their persons, and be called upon to ransack their skirt pockets at any time in the public streets at the behest of male policemen in quest of their passes. Several white men are at present undergoing long terms of imprisonment inflicted by the Orange "Free" State Circuit Courts for criminally outraging coloured ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... understand, was not there. The intention is that the girl shall be carried away and brought to him. In the middle of their cups the father is desired to produce his daughter; but this he refuses to do. Rubrius then orders the doors to be closed, and proceeds to ransack the house. Philodamus, who will not stand this, fetches his son, and calls his fellow-citizens around him. Rubrius succeeds in pouring boiling water over his host, but in the row the Romans get the worst of ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... nose should choose to lead him; so that, by the time he had walked into his twelfth year, a worse spoilt boy, a vainer boy, a more self-conceited boy, a more self-willed boy than master Sprigg was not to be found in the land—ransack the Paradise from Big Bone ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... that they did not look like men suffering from thirst. However, a most extraordinary effect was produced on two of them, for they fell down on the deck, and rolled about as if in intense agony. This drew the attention of all hands on them; and as we had no surgeon on board, the captain began to ransack his medical knowledge ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... found at the bottom of the river. They seize it, feel it, clasp it in their arms; behold them, drunk with the desire to know; they no longer look with interest upon things, except to see them pass; they do nothing except doubt and test; they ransack the world as though they were God's spies; they sharpen their thoughts into arrows, and they give birth ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... accustomed to think the thoughts of the noblest and brightest intellects, are prepared for the discovery and selection of all that is great and noble in nature. The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated. When we know the subject designed by such men, it will never be difficult ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... 1793." An unlucky town for me! Fernand was actually born seven months after my marriage, by one of those fatalities that give ground for shameful accusations! I shall ask my aunt to carry the certificate in her pocket, until I can deposit it in some place of safety. The duke would ransack my rooms for it, and the whole police are at his service. Government refuses nothing to a man high in favor. If Joseph saw me going to Mademoiselle de Vaudrey's apartments at this hour, the whole house would hear of ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... spontaneous, the carefully perfected, the oral, the written—heretofore explained in this chapter. In your final work on a passage you should aim at a faultless rendition, and should spend time and ransack the lexicons rather than come short of ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... The cat replied, "I do not lack, Though with but one provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better." In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. "Now," said the cat, "your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine." With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found. A hundred times ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... jury, which was soon to convene. Both he and his family had foreseen the event, and he had made the necessary arrangements for the conduct of his business. Humiliating as his arrest was, they all bore it with Spartan courage, and prepared to ransack the earth, if need be, to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... once, but my companion had been in active service and he knew better than that. He made me ransack the house for a flask, which he filled with whiskey; and we lined every available pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then we crept out of the house, and ran as quickly as we could down the ill-made road by which I had come overnight. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... facts which gave that group of representative men and women its moral significance, its severe but picturesque unity. Some future artist, looking back for a memorable illustration of this period, will put this new "Declaration of Independence" upon canvas, and will ransack the land for portraits of those ladies who spoke for their countrywomen at the Capitol, and of those senators and representatives who gave them audience. Mrs. Stanton was followed by Miss Anthony, morally as inevitable and impersonal as a Greek chorus, but physically ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... classes, entirely unmolested; and that we trusted much on many occasions to the honesty of the people, and never found cause to repent our trust—I cannot but feel that it would be an ungracious act to ransack newspapers and Reports to furnish materials for recording in detail, the vices of a population whom I have only personally known by their virtues. Let you and I, reader, leave off with the same pleasant impressions of the Cornish people—you, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... of 1878, while on a visit at Rougham Hall, Norfolk, the seat of Mr. Charles North, my kind host drew my attention to some large boxes of manuscripts, which he told me nobody knew anything about, but which I was at liberty to ransack to my heart's content. I at once dived into one of the boxes, and then spent half the night in examining some of its treasures. The chest is one of many, constituting in their entirety a complete apparatus for the history of the parish of Rougham ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... told of Rossetti amidst these environments which aptly illustrates almost every trait of his character: his impetuosity, and superstition especially. It was his daily habit to ransack old book-stalls, and carry off to his studio whatever treasures he unearthed, but when, upon further investigation, he found he had been deceived as to the value of a book that at first looked promising, he usually revenged himself by throwing the volume through ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... should be ashamed of, he reminded himself with impatient severity, as he traversed the upper hall on tip-toe to the western chamber. He had, on sundry previous occasions, sought, in the receptacles he was about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the like trifles. Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he was too honorable ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... and simplicity, when fancy, awakened by the sight of interesting objects, was most actively at work. At such moments, sensibility quickly furnishes similes, and the sublimated spirits combine images, which rising spontaneously, it is not necessary coldly to ransack the understanding or memory, till the laborious efforts of judgment exclude present sensations, and damp the ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... privations of a long life, was beautifully formed, aristocratic in its delicate contours; and he possessed, and constantly used, one of the most delectable, contagious and genuine laughs that ever made music in my ears. The men would ransack their humorous resources in conversation with Joe, merely for the sake of making him laugh. He would fix his old eyes squarely on yours, and laugh and laugh with infinite mirth and good nature. Such a sound ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... cut off from that domestick security which renders the lives of the most unhappy in some measure agreable. Those Officers may under colour of law and the cloak of a general warrant, break thro' the sacred rights of the Domicil, ransack mens houses, destroy their securities, carry off their property, and with little danger to themselves commit the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... I knew him at the Siege of Pampelona, he was then a Colonel of French Horse, who when the Town was ransack'd, nobly treated my Brother and my self, preserving us from all Insolencies; and I must own, (besides great Obligations) I have I know not what, that pleads kindly for him about my Heart, and will suffer no other to enter— But ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Goschen) asks us to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the heirs. What traditions? By the Irish traditions? Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book, find, I would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in which the conduct of England towards ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... licentious and rude; The soldiers' prey and rapine brought in riot; Men took delight in jewels, houses, plate, And scorn'd old sparing diet, and ware robes Too light for women; Poverty, who hatch'd Rome's greatest wits,[593] was loath'd, and all the world Ransack'd for gold, which breeds the world['s] decay; And then large limits had their butting lands; The ground, which Curius and Camillus till'd, 170 Was stretched unto the fields of hinds unknown. Again, this people could not brook calm peace; Them freedom without war might not suffice: Quarrels were ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... morning, nearly half-past ten. The young man hurried downstairs and began to ransack the pantry. He did not want to be long away from the upper room. Once, as he was stooping to search the refrigerator for butter and milk he paused in his work and thought he heard a sound at the front door, but then all seemed still, and he hurriedly put a few ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... winter, in January or February, I happen, out in the fields, to ransack the Spider's dwelling, after the rain, snow and frost have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the bastion at the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of vigour, still carrying her family. This vehicular upbringing lasts five or six months at least, without interruption. ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... Toad, when she heard she was to go to Bergen, she regularly turned the house upside down. There was nothing good enough for her in the whole shop; there was not a shelf that she didn't ransack to find the finery ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... himself on all points of the structure. Now one perceived with affright at the very top of one of the towers, a fantastic dwarf climbing, writhing, crawling on all fours, descending outside above the abyss, leaping from projection to projection, and going to ransack the belly of some sculptured gorgon; it was Quasimodo dislodging the crows. Again, in some obscure corner of the church one came in contact with a sort of living chimera, crouching and scowling; ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... arguing, struggling and bargaining with a contentious company of porters. Alas! H. was not to be seen among them. There was still a chance; he might be one of the passengers who had got ashore before my coming down, and I was preparing to rush back to the city to ransack the hotels. Just then an internal convulsion shook the swarm around the luggage pile; out burst a little Gallego staggering under a huge British portmanteau, and followed by its much desired, and now almost ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... to be Mrs. van Ambridge, and then she got a divorce and married Warden, the big lumber man. She used to give 'boy and girl' parties, in the English fashion; and when we went there we'd do as we please—play tag all over the house, and have pillow-fights, and ransack the closets and get up masquerades! Mrs. Warden's as good-natured as an old cow. You'll meet her sometime—only don't you let her fool you with those soft eyes of hers. You'll find she doesn't mean it; it's just that she likes to have handsome men ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... piety and heroism, and portrays, in her most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honour they acquired for themselves, and the great services they rendered to Christianity. In the following pages we shall ransack the stores of both, to discover the true spirit that animated the motley multitude who took up arms in the service of the cross, leaving history to vouch for facts, but not disdaining the aid of contemporary ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... materials for even a modest exhibition of the kind which he contemplated, it became necessary for him to ransack old portfolios, and to borrow from dealers, and from his few discriminating private patrons, works which had but recently left his studio and could still be traced; to utilize all the hours of daylight accorded to him by a grudging season for ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... to the fox, "Now, my friend, ransack that cunning brain of yours for one of your thousand ruses. Fetch down from your sleeve one of those certain stratagems. As for me, this is my dodge." So saying, he bounded to a tall tree and climbed to its ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... "Pickwick" in which he had placed the will, was separated from his wife's bedroom by her boudoir. The walls were thick; through them no ordinary sound could penetrate, and, unless since his departure Jeanne had moved her maid or some other chaperon into his bedroom, he could ransack it at his leisure. The safe in which he would replace the will was in the dining-room. From the sleeping-quarters of Preston, the butler, and the other servants it was ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... "A bob th' trip, yer 'anner, on a day like this." The doors of the village inn swinging constantly, and the white-aproned landlord (mopping a heated brow at royal orders), sending messengers to ransack the village cupboards for a reserve of glasses. And when at last the boats are ready for the long pull up to Sligo town, and the impatient boatmen shouting, "Coom on now, byes! Before th' toide tarns; byes, now!" The free men embark, and we, the afterguard ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... am awfully busy with my garden, and people are very kind in giving me things. To-morrow we go to the Rowans, and I am to ransack his garden! I do think the exchange of herbaceous perennials is one of the joys of life. You can hardly think how delicious it feels to garden after six months of frost and snow. Imagine my ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... fine wind had sprung up; the sun riding joyously in the heavens; and the Lagoon all tossed with white, flying manes; Media called upon Yoomy to ransack his whole assortment of songs:—warlike, amorous, and sentimental,—and regale us with something inspiring for too long the company had ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... their Being at the Arbitrary Will of a licentious Minister, they basely yield to voluntary Slavery, and future Generations shall load their Memories with incessant Execrations—On the other Hand, if we arrest the Hand which would ransack our Pockets.... Posterity will acknowledge the Virtue which preserved them free ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... separated the metal from the earth, and deposited it in the sands, thereby saving the expence of digging; hence it is esteemed an infallible gain to be able to divert a stream from its channel, and ransack its bed. From this account of the manner of gathering gold, it should follow that there are no mines of this metal in Brazil, and this the governor of Rio Grande, who happened to be at St Catharines, and frequently visited Mr Anson, did most confidently affirm, assuring ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... in vain to find A simile[2] for womankind, A simile, I mean, to fit 'em, In every circumstance to hit 'em.[3] Through every beast and bird I went, I ransack'd every element; And, after peeping through all nature, To find so whimsical a creature, A cloud[4] presented to my view, And straight this parallel I drew: Clouds turn with every wind about, They keep us in suspense ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... know that I wander about Paris a great deal, like book collectors who ransack book stalls. I just look at the sights, at the people, at all that is passing by and all that is ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that there have been ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... female world are not much regarded: yet I cannot but hope that if you knew at how dear a rate our honours are purchased, you would look with some gratulation on our success, and with some pity on our miscarriages. Think on the misery of him who is condemned to cultivate barrenness and ransack vacuity; who is obliged to continue his talk when his meaning is spent, to raise merriment without images, to harass his imagination in quest of thoughts which he cannot start, and his memory in pursuit of narratives which he cannot overtake; observe ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... pull, and ransack the box till he had almost destroyed it was now his natural action. But it ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... home in idleness and riot, Ransack for mistresses th' unwholesome stews, And never know the worth of ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... remained as a field for the Parsons Commission only the Midland Counties and Connaught. Of these they made the most in the shortest space of time. A horde of clerkly spies were employed under the name of "Discoverers," to ransack old Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with such good success, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's and Queen's Counties, were "found by inquisition to be vested ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... has no mercy on himself, and no mercy on others," he explained, "where his literary labors are concerned. You must spare yourself, Miss Emily. It is not only absurd, it's cruel, to expect you to ransack old newspapers for discoveries in Yucatan, from the time when Stephens published his 'Travels in Central America'—nearly forty years since! Begin with back numbers published within a few years—say five years from the present date—and let us see what your search over ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... home, but if the Plague spreads—and it looks as if all the City would presently be affected—all will have to run the risk of contagion. There are thousands of women now who voluntarily enter the houses as nurses for a small rate of pay. Even robbers, they say, will enter and ransack the houses of the dead in search of plunder. It will be a shame indeed then if one should shrink from doing so when possibly one ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them? But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away," he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, "and at once, this ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... is a little grove, capitally situated for a halting-place. We might stop there for a little, ransack the chariot to find whatever fragments may yet remain in it of our last stock of provisions, and gathering them all up take our breakfast, such as it may be, comfortably sheltered from this cold north wind ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... would be sure to escape the suspicion of ever having been washed. Ask the luminous-eyed mother for anything, for a knife to cut your tobacco, for a cup to get a drink of water, and the sweet sloven would be obliged to ransack two-thirds of the articles of the house ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... of my life. If I am able to repay you by avenging you on some proud miscreant that hath done you any wrong, know that it is my office to help the weak, to revenge the wronged, and to punish traitors. Ransack your memory, and if you find anything of this sort for me to do, you have but to utter it, and I promise you, by the Order of Knighthood which I have received, to procure you satisfaction to your ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... There is no choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning, and say, 'I am full of life, I will go to sea, and find an Antarctic continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany, and find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I foresee a new mechanic power:' no, but he finds himself in the river of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities of his contemporaries. He stands ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... and illustrated, among New England cottages for forgotten and more or less damaged crockery. The Youngest Member herself—by that time promoted probably to the ranks of the matrons whose treasures she delights to ransack—will be slow to recall and understand her enthusiasm of to-day, and marvel at her ever having detected charms in the homely things of clay she deems worthy of the graver. We, her contemporaries, however, living in the midst of the contagion ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... inestimable service, sir! Spare no money; ransack heaven and earth if it is necessary; but, in God's name, let me know, and let me know soon, where De Vlierbeck and his daughter are hidden. It is impossible for me to describe the sufferings of my heart or the ardor of my desire to find them. Let me assure ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new-found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates; I'll have them read me strange philosophy, And tell the secrets of ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Our nerves have been adapted to the circumstances of our early life as a race in tropical forests; and we still retain a marked liking for sweets of every sort. Not content with our strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, apples, pears, cherries, plums and other northern fruits, we ransack the world for dates, figs, raisins, and oranges. Indeed, in spite of our acquired meat-eating propensities, it may be fairly said that fruits and seeds (including wheat, rice, peas, beans, and other grains and pulse) still form by far the ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... if the Searchers come, they'll never be so uncivil to ransack thy Lodgings; and we are bound in Christian Charity to do for one another—Some rich Commodities, I am sure—and some fine Knick-knack will fall to thy share, I'll warrant thee —Pox on him for a young Rogue, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... ways once more. He would never forgive himself for having allowed that girl to ransack his drawers—but he must act, and at once! He must, without fail, find that mislaid document. Of one thing he was sure—the document was not on the premises. Brocq jumped ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... sublimity, character? seek them in the Rape of the Lock, the Fables of Dryden, the Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day, and Absalom and Achitophel: you will discover in these two poets only, all for which you must ransack innumerable metres, and God only knows how many writers of the day, without finding a tittle of the same qualities,—with the addition, too, of wit, of which the latter have none. I have not, however, forgotten ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... know how to teach the multiplication table. He may read Arabic or Sanskrit, and not know how to teach a child the alphabet of his mother tongue. The Sabbath-school teacher may dip deep into biblical lore, he may ransack the commentaries, and may become, as many Sabbath-school teachers are, truly learned in Bible knowledge, and yet be utterly incompetent to teach a class of children. He can no more hit the wandering attention, or make a lodgment of his knowledge in the minds of his youthful auditory, than ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... drugs. On September 7 he wrote Potts from Albany that he hoped the small supply that he obtained and the chest of medicines that Morgan had just sent would hold out until he could obtain additional supplies in New England, where he was then headed "to ransack that Country ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... could bring with them, but these have always been burned before we separated. Such letters as I have had from France, I have always destroyed as soon as I have read them. Perilous stuff of that sort should never be left about. No; they may ransack the place from top to bottom, and nothing will be found that could not be read aloud, without harm, in the ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... see what on 'arth!" she went on. "Half the time you might ransack Wallencamp from top to bottom, and you'd find everybody a'most somewhere, and nobody to hum! It ain't much like the cake Silvy made last week—she's crazier than ever—'Where's the raisins, Silvy?' says I—I always make it chock full of 'em, and there wasn't one,—'Oh,' says Silvy, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Suppose the police come! Suppose they ransack his papers.... He hasn't told us what to do ... we are not ready for them.... What are we to do?" cried Charolais, ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... twenty minutes contemplating this singular crystal fossil of a ship, and considering whether I should go down to her and ransack her for whatever might answer my turn. But she looked so darkly secret under her white garb, and there was something so terrible in the aspect of the motionless snow-clad sentinel who leaned upon the rail, that my heart failed me, and I very easily persuaded ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... something more. 270 Next Jonson sat, in ancient learning train'd, His rigid judgment Fancy's flights restrain'd; Correctly pruned each wild luxuriant thought, Mark'd out her course, nor spared a glorious fault. The book of man he read with nicest art, And ransack'd all the secrets of the heart; Exerted penetration's utmost force, And traced each passion to its proper source; Then, strongly mark'd, in liveliest colours drew, And brought each foible forth to public view: 280 The coxcomb felt a lash in every ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... which immediately follow all arrests, the police officers spread through the apartments, and proceeded to a searching examination of them. They had received orders to obey M. Tabaret, and the old fellow guided them in their search, made them ransack drawers and closets, and move the furniture to look underneath or behind. They seized a number of articles belonging to the viscount,—documents, manuscripts, and a very voluminous correspondence; ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... final answer of France this week. Bussy(169) was in great pain on the fireworks for quebec, lest he should be obliged to illuminate his house: you see I ransack my memory for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... made me covetous of girlish beauty, And a young bride: for in my fieriest youth I swayed such passions; nor was this my age Infected with that leprosy of lust[406] Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men, Making them ransack to the very last The dregs of pleasure for their vanished joys; Or buy in selfish marriage some young victim, Too helpless to refuse a state that's honest, 320 Too feeling not to know herself a wretch. Our wedlock was not of this sort; you had ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... warily knoweth His love shall never be requited. And thus the wise Immortal doeth,— 'T is his study and delight To bless that creature day and night; From all evils to defend her; In her lap to pour all splendor; To ransack earth for riches rare, And fetch her stars to deck her hair: He mixes music with her thoughts, And saddens her with heavenly doubts: All grace, all good his great heart knows, Profuse in love, the king bestows, Saying, 'Hearken! Earth, Sea, Air! This monument of ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... necessary; yet I felt as if it were a kind of sacrilege. To disturb the old dust upon the library-shelves and select such books as I cared to keep; to sort and destroy all kinds of hoarded papers; to ransack desks that had never been unlocked since the hands that last closed them were laid to rest for ever, constituted my share of the work. Hortense superintended the rest. As for the household goods, we resolved to keep nothing, save a few old family ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... are disposed to own it, and they who only hear of them through others, however trustworthy, would not impugn their character for common-sense by professing a belief to which common-sense is a merciless persecutor. But he who reads my assertion in the quiet of his own room, will perhaps pause, ransack his memory, and find there, in some dark corner which he excludes from "the babbling and remorseless day," a pale recollection that proves the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they set to work again to ransack every quarter of the raft; they rolled every spar aside, they overturned everything on board, and only grew more and more incensed with anger as ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... the tree he ordered the negress to change Nell's dress while he himself unleashed Saba, whom previously he had tied from fear that in following his tracks he might scare away the game; afterwards he began to ransack all the clothing and luggage in the hope that he might find some ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... come at, the said change of prison was agreed to,—but not until the Nabob's mother aforesaid had engaged to pay for the said change of prison a sum of ten thousand pounds, (one half of which was paid on the return of the eunuchs,) and that "she would ransack the zenanah [women's apartments] for kincobs, muslins, clothes, &c., &c., &c., and that she would even allow a deduction from the annual allowance made to her for her subsistence in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was it likely, sir, as I should go and fight against the Hall? No, sir, my bad brother Nat, who is as full of wickedness as a gooseberry's full of pips, might go and try and take the Manor, if it was only so as to get a chance to ransack my tool-shed; but you know better than to think I'd go and do such a thing by him. Would you mind ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... for the articles, and then went downstairs to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest. "Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air, with a ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... and I packed our portmanteaus, and sat down to the intellectual repast. It was a feast, and we enjoyed it. I always have enjoyed the Richmond editorials. If I were a poet, I should study them for epithets. Exhausting the dictionary, their authors ransack heaven, earth, and the other place, and into one expression throw such a concentration of scorn, hate, fury, or exultation as is absolutely stunning to a man of ordinary nerves. Talk of their being bridled! They ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the countryside—"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They'll ransack that castle," he remarked with ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the little tyrant, and which increased their value many times—so many times, in fact, that he hid them every night in fear of burglars. Since he concealed them each time in a different place, he was obliged to ransack his auntie's room every morning, to the great disturbance of Martha, the maid, ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... all men by its piquancy and new charm. Men say, Where did he get this? and think there was something divine in his life. But no; they have myriads of facts just as good, would they only get a lamp to ransack their attics withal. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... last scandal, a cold, caught at some Vipont's ball, became fever; and so from that door the Black Horses bore away the Bloomsbury Dame, ere she was yet—the fashion! Happy in grief the widower who may, with confiding hand, ransack the lost wife's harmless desk, sure that no thought concealed from him in life will rise accusing from the treasured papers. But that pale proud mourner, hurrying the eye over sweet-scented billets; compelled, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... me somewhat oftener to my library. It is in the chief approach to my house, so that under my eyes are my garden, my base-court, my yard, and even the best rooms of my house. There, without order or method, I can turn over and ransack now one book and now another. Sometimes I muse, sometimes save; and walking up and down I indite and register these my humours, these my conceits. It is placed in a third storey of a tower. The lowermost is my ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... fancy, awakened by the sight of interesting objects, was most actively at work. At such moments, sensibility quickly furnishes similes, and the sublimated spirits combine images, which rising spontaneously, it is not necessary coldly to ransack the understanding or memory, till the laborious efforts of judgment exclude present sensations, and ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... declaring that it was utterly impossible to return without having some refreshments, after the immense fatigue they had all undergone in exploring the beauties of the surrounding country. Most of the party were of the same opinion, so forthwith he and Bob Mornington proceeded to ransack the hampers, and distributed the contents in the most primitive manner imaginable, to the amusement of the company generally, and to the extreme disgust of Grace Arlington in particular. And then there was a general move to the carriages. After they arrived at Elm Grove, Lady Ashton ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... mind; I'll lend you my white silk for evenings." And my sister, who was always good-natured, carried me off to ransack her wardrobe. ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... night and day. Find out where he lives and what he does; and ransack his room if possible. He is either an innocent man or a sleek rascal. Report to me this time ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... with them! Why, their happiness Spread abroad till it grew a joy Universal—It even reached And thrilled the town till the Church was stirred Into suspecting that wrong was wrong!— And it stayed awake as the preacher preached A Real "Love"-text that he had not long To ransack for ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... carefully exclude all that which was not in some way fresh and intelligent, and if not good, at least promising, a room like this one would hold all his trophies, even though he should use his millions to ransack Europe and America. It is nobody's fault, least of all is it the architect's fault. For see what you expect of an architect. He must know about digging deep holes; and about sheath-piling, that he may retain ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... Saturnalian joys should fill him) Your friend Catullus such a set Of murderous authors; but the debt I'll pay, be even with you yet— For no perfidious friend I spare. At early dawn, ere the sun shine, I Will rise, and ransack shop and stall, Collect your Caesii and Aquini, And that Suffenus: and with care And diligence, will have all sent To you, for a like punishment. Hence, poets! with your jingling chimes: Hence, miserables! halt and lame; Be off, ye troublers of our times! I send you packing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... courage comes again, and arousing themselves they ransack the woods for a mile around till they find that owl, and if they do not kill him they at least worry him half to death and ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... added dignity of years. I have a motherly interest in you. If you were not married I dare say I should 'ransack the ages' for some one fit and proper, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the middle of winter, in January or February, I happen, out in the fields, to ransack the Spider's dwelling, after the rain, snow and frost have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the bastion at the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of vigour, still carrying her family. This vehicular upbringing lasts five or six months ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... She then proceeds to ransack the room for bonds, leases, and money; but Argan starts up and tells her she has taught him one useful lesson for life at any ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... no mercy on himself, and no mercy on others," he explained, "where his literary labors are concerned. You must spare yourself, Miss Emily. It is not only absurd, it's cruel, to expect you to ransack old newspapers for discoveries in Yucatan, from the time when Stephens published his 'Travels in Central America'—nearly forty years since! Begin with back numbers published within a few years—say five years from the present date—and let us see what your search ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... he wakes to-morrow and finds it gone—what then? You know this Governor of Cesena well enough to be assured that he would ransack the castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until the missive ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... we are cut off from that domestick security which renders the lives of the most unhappy in some measure agreable. Those Officers may under colour of law and the cloak of a general warrant, break thro' the sacred rights of the Domicil, ransack mens houses, destroy their securities, carry off their property, and with little danger to themselves commit the most ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... take much—only half a dozen articles of plate off the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack the house, as they ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have they taken thee, My only one, my darling? Oh, the brigands! Naples shall bleed for this. What do ye here, Slaves, fools, who stare upon me? Know ye not I have been robbed? Hence! Ransack every house From cave to roof in Naples. Search all streets. Arrest whomso ye meet. Let no sail stir From out the harbor. Ring the alarum! Quick! This is a general woe. [Exeunt LUCA and FIAMETTA.] The Duke's my friend; He'll further me. The Prince—oh, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Seine, opposite the Louvre, and demanded that a banquet be prepared for them. Though the royal party was masked, the unwilling host knew his guests but too well, and dared not deny their peremptory command. In the midst of the carousal, at a preconcerted signal, the king's followers began to ransack the house, maltreating the occupants, wantonly destroying the costly furniture, appropriating the silver plate, and breaking open doors and coffers in search of money. The next day even Paris itself was indignant at the base conduct of its ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... village was discovered, which has created no small stir in the antiquarian world, and merits a brief description. Nothing was known of its existence previously; and this is an instance of the delightful surprises which explorers have in store for them, when they ransack the buried treasure-house of the earth, and reveal the relics which have been so ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... Delaware, and unites the waters of the two bays. Here we were handed into a barge, or what we in common parlance would term a large canal boat; but the Americans are the fondest people in the universe of big names, and ransack the Dictionary for the most pompous appellations with which to designate their works or productions. The universal fondness for European titles that obtains here, is also remarkable. The president, is "his excellency,"—"congressmen," are "honorables,"—and every petty merchant, or "dry-goods ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... their pumps, of their equipment, of their trucks; other pumps, other equipment, other trucks must be put in their place. Otherwise, nothing will prevent that in the future other expeditions will come to ransack other countries. A bold move towards Venice allowed base hands to be laid on the most beautiful works of art humanity had produced. A fortunate descent on the shores of Long Island or of New Jersey would allow the Metropolitan ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... or read it, a million of times, That men are made up of falsehood and crimes; Search all the old authors, and ransack the new, Thou'lt find in love stories, scarce one mortal true. Then why this complaining? And why this wry face? Is it 'cause thou'rt affected most with thy own case? Had'st thou sooner made others' misfortunes thy ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... about strong impressions. They were led to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that there have been ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... When she finds him drawing pictures at his desk, she smiles approval, for she sees in him another Raphael. She does not disdain the lowliest insect, reptile, or plant when she finds it within the circle of the child's interests. She is willing, nay eager, to ransack the universe if only she may come upon elements of nutrition for her pupils. From every flower that blooms she gathers honey that she may distill it into the life of the child. She does not coddle the child; she ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... Denys grimly. "That we shall see." He added, after some reflection, that they must divide their forces; she stay here with eyes and ears wide open, and he ransack every town in Holland for her, if need be. "But she will not be many leagues from here. They be three. Three fly not so fast, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of familiar notions in acquiring an insight into new things is a natural tendency or drift of the mind. As soon as we see something new and desire to understand it, at once we involuntarily begin to ransack our old stock of ideas to discover anything in our previous experience which corresponds to this or is like it. For whatever is like it or has an analogy to it, or serves the same uses, will explain this new thing, though the two objects be ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... Monza, Mannheim and Leyden to draw up plans and a particular description of the Oxford Physic Garden, by Magdalen College, as well as the plantations of Worcester, Trinity and St. John's Colleges; and to ransack the bookshops of that seat of learning for such works as might be procurable in no more difficult tongue than the Latin. In this way Captain Barker became possessed of a vast number of monkish herbals, Pliny's ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... first I had carried sweetmeats to our tryst, which were accepted with moderate pleasure, but one morning I had taken a huge volume of Rackham's Mother Goose which Nickols had brought me, and from then on our hour had been one of spiritual communion. I found the young mind insatiate and I had to ransack the library for stories and poems and pictures suitable to his years, though he rapidly developed a very advanced taste. The morning I read him the Shakespearian lines woven around the little Princes in the Tower, having suitably connected up ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of the native forces which all alien things must yield to till they take the American cast. It is almost dismaying, that physiognomy, before it familiarizes itself anew; and in the brief first moment while it is yet objective, you ransack your conscience for any sins you may have committed in your absence from it and make ready to do penance for them. I felt almost as if I had brought the dirty streets with me, and were guilty of having left them lying about, so impossible were they with reference ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... antiquarians of to-day search the mounds of Assyria for relics of the ancient civilizations of the East, so did the Humanists ransack the libraries of the monasteries and cathedrals, and all the out-of-the-way places of Europe, for old manuscripts of the classic writers. The precious documents were found covered with mould in damp cellars, or loaded ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... at the Feroe Islands, whither the north wind might have carried the castaways; then, if he was convinced that they had not been received in any of the ports of that locality, he would continue his search beyond the Northern Ocean, ransack the whole western coast of Norway as far as Bodoe, the place nearest the scene of the shipwreck; and, if ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... young fellow!" said the officer, as he snapped the handcuffs on Peter's wrists. Then, while one of them remained on guard with the revolver, the other three proceeded to ransack the place, pulling out the bureau-drawers and kicking the contents this way and that, grabbing every scrap of writing they could find and jamming it into a couple of suit-cases. There were books with red bindings and terrifying titles, but ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... ashamed of, he reminded himself with impatient severity, as he traversed the upper hall on tip-toe to the western chamber. He had, on sundry previous occasions, sought, in the receptacles he was about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the like trifles. Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he was too honorable to pry ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... the prow, and made to understand by signs that they must not move on peril of their lives. A Tuck was placed at the helm, and the tartane's head turned towards the pirate captor; and all the others, who were not employed otherwise, began to ransack the vessel and feast on the provisions. Some hams were thrown overboard, with shouts of evident scorn as belonging to the unclean beast, but the wine was eagerly drank, and Maitre Hebert uttered a wail of dismay as ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their predecessors, they have confounded the famous and the infamous, the renowned and the notorious. Great saints, great sinners; great philosophers, great quacks; great conquerors, great murderers; great ministers, great thieves; each and all have had their admirers, ready to ransack earth, from the equator to either pole, to find ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... is also illustrated very well in these simple cases. It is an exploratory process, a searching for facts. In a way, it is a trial and error process. If you don't ransack the house, at least you ransack your memory, in search for facts that will assist you. You recall this fact {463} and that, you turn this way and that, mentally, till some fact is recalled that serves your need. No more in reasoning than ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... The more adventurous used to overhaul vessels skirting the coast to and from Cuba and Central America. They'd sally out from their hiding-places among the keys and lie in wait for the merchant-ships. If the prey was weak enough they'd board and ransack her and make her crew walk the plank,—(that's how Aaron Burr's beautiful daughter is supposed to have died on her way North, you know,)—and if the ship showed fight or seemed too tough a handful the pirates hit on a surer way of capture. They'd turn ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... say sternly, "Go away!" There were days when he had lucid intervals and could give his wife excellent advice as to the sale of their wines; but at such times he became extremely annoying, and would ransack her closets and steal her delicacies, which he devoured in secret. Occasionally, when the usual visitors made their appearance he would treat them with civility; but as a general thing his remarks and replies were incoherent. For instance, ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... bunches of pink roses peeping out through trellis work, and it was these which she had just begun to cut out. Though Tilling was noted for the ingenuity with which its more fashionable ladies devised novel and quaint effects in their dress in an economical manner, Diva felt sure, ransack her memory though she might, that nobody ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... search your rooms, sir. I am prepared to search every room in the Albany! Our man seems to have gone for the leads; but unless he's left more marks outside than in, or we find him up there, I shall have the entire building to ransack." ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... have their Being at the Arbitrary Will of a licentious Minister, they basely yield to voluntary Slavery, and future Generations shall load their Memories with incessant Execrations—On the other Hand, if we arrest the Hand which would ransack our Pockets.... Posterity will acknowledge the Virtue which preserved them ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... as a field for the Parsons Commission only the Midland Counties and Connaught. Of these they made the most in the shortest space of time. A horde of clerkly spies were employed under the name of "Discoverers," to ransack old Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with such good success, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's and Queen's Counties, were "found by inquisition to be vested in the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... are, Professor Aronnax," Captain Nemo then said. "You observe this confined bay? A month from now in this very place, the numerous fishing boats of the harvesters will gather, and these are the waters their divers will ransack so daringly. This bay is felicitously laid out for their type of fishing. It's sheltered from the strongest winds, and the sea is never very turbulent here, highly favorable conditions for diving work. Now let's put on our underwater suits, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... with a black cat asleep on her lap. She was a terrible tea-drinker, and was very fond of me, but I ill requited her kindness by continually plundering her sugar-bowl. The latter she took to hiding, but I, engaging her the time in airy conversation, used to ransack the premises until I found it. Eventually it became a game of skill between the hider and the seeker. I can now see the old woman's eyes over the rims of her spectacles as she laid her knitting down and ruefully regarded the development of the search. But at this game, owing to the ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... the narrative, I must not forget to tell, how they likwise broke open the chapterhouse, ransack'd the records, broke the seals, tore the writings in pieces, specially such as had great seals annexed unto them, which they took or mistook rather for the popes bulls. So that a grave and sober person ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... regarded: yet I cannot but hope that if you knew at how dear a rate our honours are purchased, you would look with some gratulation on our success, and with some pity on our miscarriages. Think on the misery of him who is condemned to cultivate barrenness and ransack vacuity; who is obliged to continue his talk when his meaning is spent, to raise merriment without images, to harass his imagination in quest of thoughts which he cannot start, and his memory in pursuit of narratives which he cannot overtake; observe the effort with which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... said to the fox, "Now, my friend, ransack that cunning brain of yours for one of your thousand ruses. Fetch down from your sleeve one of those certain stratagems. As for me, this is my dodge." So saying, he bounded to a tall tree and climbed to its ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... set out for Albany with a small stock of drugs. On September 7 he wrote Potts from Albany that he hoped the small supply that he obtained and the chest of medicines that Morgan had just sent would hold out until he could obtain additional supplies in New England, where he was then headed "to ransack that Country ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... a glaring modern instance of good or evil, which every live minister feels called upon to preach about; to the genuine edification of his hearers; why must he get out his concordance and ransack the Scriptures to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... "give me a man's rig-out—a jersey and some breeches and a cap—quick," and, while the old fellow stared and whistled softly, I helped to ransack his box; and in a trice I had dressed myself, putting my pistols, my papers, and my money in my new clothes; but leaving everything else in a heap ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... whose history never has been and never will be written, whose career on the earth, dateless and chartless, can be dimly revealed to us only by palaeontology, excites in us a very different feeling. Though with the keenest interest we ransack every nook and corner of the earth's surface for information about him, we are all the while aware that what we are studying is human zoology and not history. Our Neanderthal man is a specimen, not a character. We cannot ask him the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... replied Horatio; 'I hope you don't suppose I am going to turn out of my den, or to allow a pack of girls to ransack my drawers and ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... skilful orators to seem damning and unanswerable. All the arts for inflaming popular passion under the pretext of "patriotism" would have been used, and we know that patriotism sometimes assumes strange disguises. The material would have been rich and easily accessible. Instead of having to ransack ancient numbers of Irish or American newspapers for incautious phrases dropped by Mr. Redmond or Mr. O'Brien in moments of unusual provocation, the speeches of Botha, Steyn, and De Wet, during the war, and even at the Peace Conference, would ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... in a secret place in her heart. But as soon as she found herself face to face with the man to whom she was obliged to lie, she became uneasy, all her ideas melted like wax before a flame, her inventive and her reasoning faculties were paralysed, she might ransack her brain but would find only a void; still, she must say something, and there lay within her reach precisely the fact which she had wished to conceal, which, being the truth, was the one thing that had remained. She broke off from ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... would need a stout-hearted criminal to go through the pockets of his victim, and if the motive were other than theft, it might be that the pearls and papers were still on the body. If Clo failed to find them elsewhere she would have to ransack those pockets. The thought was too horrible to dwell upon. Frantically she tossed over the contents of the suitcase, lifting and shaking every garment scattered on the bed. She peered under the pillows; she ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... juncture a number of the canoes were detached from the fight, and Karlsefin observed, with much anxiety, that the savages were going to ransack the houses. ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Poured out what first from quick invention came, Nor never stood one word thereof to blot; Much like his wit that was to use the same. But with my verses he his mistress won, Who doated on the dolt beyond all measure. But see, for you to heaven for phrase I run, And ransack all Apollo's golden treasure! Yet by my troth, this fool his love obtains, And I lose you for all my wit ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... that you have alleged in palliation of the count's crime, and I fully understand you—though I still think it the most terrible thing I ever have heard tell of. But I do not perfectly comprehend wherefore you ransack our language of all its deepest terms of contempt which to heap upon the head of the Chevalier de la Rochederrien? He was the count's sworn friend, she was the count's wedded wife; they both were forsworn and false, and both betrayed him. But ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... pickapack, gimcrack, ticktack, picknick, barrack, knapsack, hollyhock, shamrock, hammock, hillock, hammock, bullock, roebuck. But the verbs on which this argument is founded are only six; attack, ransack, traffick, frolick, mimick, and physick; and these, unquestionably, must either be spelled with the k, or must assume it in their derivatives. Now that useful class of words which are generally and properly written with final c, are about four hundred and fifty in number, and are all of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... down and it changed into a writing desk, with an intriguing array of small drawers and pigeonholes at the back of it, and a suspicion of alluring and unattainable treasures in every separate receptacle. To ransack all of these was Keith's most audacious dream, but when the dream came true at last, it was fraught with no ecstasy of realization, for he was a middle-aged man, and in the room behind him his ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... freedom led to every part, And secret chamber of the heart, Dost thou thy friendly host betray, And shew thy riotous gang the way To enter in, with covert treason, O'erthrow the drowsy guard of reason, To ransack the abandon'd place, And ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... years ago, the conscience of the world revolted against black slavery, what should its feelings be today when it is confronted with this new and most appalling form of white slavery? We should in vain ransack the chronicles of history to find, even in ancient times, crimes similar to this one. For the Jews were at war with Babylon, the Gauls were at war with Rome. Belgium did not wage war against Germany. She merely refused to betray ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... to the actual facts which gave that group of representative men and women its moral significance, its severe but picturesque unity. Some future artist, looking back for a memorable illustration of this period, will put this new "Declaration of Independence" upon canvas, and will ransack the land for portraits of those ladies who spoke for their countrywomen at the Capitol, and of those senators and representatives who gave them audience. Mrs. Stanton was followed by Miss Anthony, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... began to ransack the archives of the National Academy of Music I was at once struck by the surprising coincidences between the phenomena ascribed to the "ghost" and the most extraordinary and fantastic tragedy that ever excited ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... glutted with conceit of this! Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please, Resolve[26] me of all ambiguities, Perform what desperate enterprise I will? I'll have them fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new-found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates; I'll have them read me strange philosophy, And tell the secrets of all foreign kings; I'll have them wall all Germany with brass, And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg; ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... love shall never be requited. And thus the wise Immortal doeth,— 'T is his study and delight To bless that creature day and night; From all evils to defend her; In her lap to pour all splendor; To ransack earth for riches rare, And fetch her stars to deck her hair: He mixes music with her thoughts, And saddens her with heavenly doubts: All grace, all good his great heart knows, Profuse in love, the king bestows, Saying, 'Hearken! Earth, Sea, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... had placed the will, was separated from his wife's bedroom by her boudoir. The walls were thick; through them no ordinary sound could penetrate, and, unless since his departure Jeanne had moved her maid or some other chaperon into his bedroom, he could ransack it at his leisure. The safe in which he would replace the will was in the dining-room. From the sleeping-quarters of Preston, the butler, and the other servants it ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... friend, nobody preaches like him. Else religion would be to every one just what it should be, the most valuable and reliable friend of men. He explained the gospel of the day without fanaticism, yet with a grand simplicity which needed not to ransack the world for its wisdom, its figures of speech, or its scholastic arts. It was no religious study, hurled in its three divisions at the heart of stony sinners; nor was it what some would call a current article of pulpit manufacture. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... flew; With busy search thro' ev'ry Class, Thro' ev'ry Rank of Men they pass, In ev'ry Class of Men they find Some Hearts corrupted to their Mind, Ev'ry Profession they explore, Ev'ry Profession gives them more; The higher Functions ransack'd, now Each vulgar Trade, each sweaty Brow Is search'd, and in them all were found, Some hollow, rotten, and unsound. In each depraved Bosom dwell These Sprites, nor miss their native Hell. Hence ev'ry Blockhead, Knave, and Dunce, Start into Preachers ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... lack, Though with but one provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better." In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. "Now," said the cat, "your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine." With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found. A hundred times he falsified The nose of every hound.— Was here, and there, ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... in short, resolved, come what might, to ransack Koltsoff's rooms before dawn—to dump the contents of all drawers in the middle of the floors, to cut with his knife any bags that might be locked, and in general to turn the suite inside out. For he had ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... Now they would ransack the house at their leisure. There was light enough in the attics to explore the treasures hidden there. They found old coal-hods for helmets, and warming-pans for fiery steeds, and they had tournaments in ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... whom he knew. Nine-tenths of the neighbours were far away on the seaters, and of the small remainder, almost all were attending the bishop on the opposite shore of the lake. Rolf shook his head at every deserted farm-house that he passed, thinking how the pirates might ransack the dwellings, if they should happen to discover that few inhabitants remained in them but those whose limbs were too old to climb the mountain. He shook his head again when he thought what consternation he might spread through these dwellings by dropping at the doors the news of how ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... for them all the days of my life. If I am able to repay you by avenging you on some proud miscreant that hath done you any wrong, know that it is my office to help the weak, to revenge the wronged, and to punish traitors. Ransack your memory, and if you find anything of this sort for me to do, you have but to utter it, and I promise you, by the Order of Knighthood which I have received, to procure you ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... club last winter," said I, "did you occupy your time in discussions of the text? Did you compare manuscripts? Did you investigate the canonicity of Shakspeare's various plays? Did you ransack the past to know the value of the latest theory that there never was a Will. Shakspeare save as a nom de plume for Lord Bacon? Did you inquire into the origin of his several plots, and study to know how much of his work was really his own and how much was borrowed from ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... ejaculated Mr. Hobbs, and forthwith began to ransack his pockets for the band which said he was ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... consider these things, and appease the mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, Thrasyllus, to make equals of this soft-tongued race. Why, these Ionians, do they not enjoy themselves in perpetual holidays?—spend days at the banquet?—ransack earth and sea for dainties and for perfumes?—and shall they be the equals of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome, that we may well have no fear of death? I hate these sleek and merry feast-givers; ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... the shore, the boatmen reaping a harvest. "A bob th' trip, yer 'anner, on a day like this." The doors of the village inn swinging constantly, and the white-aproned landlord (mopping a heated brow at royal orders), sending messengers to ransack the village cupboards for a reserve of glasses. And when at last the boats are ready for the long pull up to Sligo town, and the impatient boatmen shouting, "Coom on now, byes! Before th' toide tarns; byes, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... gander for its wisdom, knowing that the youthful gosling is proverbially "green." Miss Whiffle selected the aged gander for me, and I gnawed its sinewy limbs without a protest. On a similar principle she appeared to ransack the town shops for prehistoric joints (the locality was rich in fossils), and vegetables that, like eggs, only grew harder the more they ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... did I ransack my memory for the narrative of any traveller who had beheld and described this lake. The red hand-book, beloved of tourists, did not even deign to notice its existence. The more I meditated on the subject, the more I became convinced that here was an untrodden corner of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... answer of France this week. Bussy(169) was in great pain on the fireworks for quebec, lest he should be obliged to illuminate his house: you see I ransack my memory for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Gawaine and his fellows gat the field and put the Romans to flight, and after returned and came with their fellowship in such wise that no man of worship was lost of them, save that Sir Gawaine was sore hurt. Then the king did do ransack his wounds and comforted him. And thus was the beginning of the first journey of the Britons and Romans, and there were slain of the Romans more than ten thousand, and great joy and mirth was made that night in the host of King Arthur. And on the morn he sent ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... erected Spirit that fell From heav'n, for ev'n in heav'n his looks and thoughts 680 Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of Heav'ns pavement, trod'n Gold, Then aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific: by him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught, Ransack'd the Center, and with impious hands Rifl'd the bowels of thir mother Earth For Treasures better hid. Soon had his crew Op'nd into the Hill a spacious wound And dig'd out ribs of Gold. Let none admire 690 That riches grow in Hell; that soyle may best Deserve the pretious bane. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... would be along shortly, she expressed her fears that they would take everything on the premises. They set me out a lunch and treated me rather kindly, so that I really began to sympathize with them; for I knew that the soldiers would ransack their house and confiscate everything they could lay their hands on. At last I resolved to do what I could to protect them. After the generals and the staff officers had passed by, I took it upon myself ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... joyfulness at being allowed to help, she gathered up her reins, she nodded her pretty little head at him, and was just starting off her ponies at full speed, equally eager 'to tell Harry' and to ransack Churton for the stores required, when it occurred to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah, not even in dey vittles, sah, even if dey was pie, which dey wa'n't, sah, fob dis we'y day Mistah Falk he wants pie and stew'd he come, and me and he, sah, we sho' ransack dis galley, sah, and try like we can, not even two of us togetheh, sah, can sca' up a piece of pie foh ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... in those who tapu their trees secretly, so that they may detect a depredator by his sickness. Or, perhaps, we should understand the idea of the hidden tapu otherwise, as a politic device to spread uneasiness and extort confessions: so that, when a man is ailing, he shall ransack his brain for any possible offence, and send at once for any proprietor whose rights he has invaded. 'Had you hidden a tapu?' we may conceive him asking; and I cannot imagine the proprietor gainsaying it; and this is perhaps the strangest feature ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even the functionaries and the subjects of Rome. Amid the general anarchy, where impunity seemed certain, nobody restrained himself any longer. In Africa especially, where the old instinct of piracy is always half-awake, they applied themselves to ransack the fugitive Romans and Italians. Many rich people were come there, seeking a place of safety in the belief that they would be more secure when they had put the sea between themselves and the Barbarians. The report of their riches had preceded them, exaggerated out of all measure ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... comes on one sometimes, I suppose. Well, shall we go in? I have shown you all the wonders of the garden, and told you all the wonders connected with it of which I know aught. No doubt there would be other wonders more wonderful, if one could ransack the private history of all the Claverings for the last hundred years. I hope, Miss Burton, that any marvels which may attend your career here may be happy marvels." She then took Florence by the hand, and, drawing close to her, stooped over and ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... goodnesses of the great shows that we are at least lovers of virtue—that we may ourselves be aspiring to reach her serene abodes. But to dwell on their faults, and still more to ransack that we may record them, that is the low industry of envy, which, grown into a habit, becomes malice, at once hardening and embittering the heart. Such, beyond all doubt, in the case of our great poet, was the source of many "a malignant truth and lie," fondly penned, and carefully corrected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... that leprosy of lust, Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men Making them ransack to the very last The dregs of pleasure ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... have any individual great, except through the general. There is no choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning and say, 'I am full of life, I will go to sea and find an Antarctic continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany and find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I foresee a new mechanic power:' no, but he finds himself in the river of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities of his contemporaries. He stands where all the eyes of men look one way, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... recall your past, it comes in pictures. You have to ransack a great photographic gallery. Before you ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... confusion that Napoleon again entered Moscow. He had allowed this pillage, hoping that his army, scattered over the ruins, would not ransack them in vain. But when he learned that the disorder increased; that the old guard itself was seduced; that the Russian peasants, who were at length allured thither with provisions, for which he caused them to be liberally paid for the purpose of drawing others, were robbed ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... at the Siege of Pampelona, he was then a Colonel of French Horse, who when the Town was ransack'd, nobly treated my Brother and my self, preserving us from all Insolencies; and I must own, (besides great Obligations) I have I know not what, that pleads kindly for him about my Heart, and will suffer no other to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... to your room, Alice, where we can obtain the necessary articles. Mr. Smilk will naturally want to ransack your room anyhow, so we 'll be saving quite a bit of time. And the police are likely to be here ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... Though the force of his scales spurn thy spears, yet know there is a place under his lowest belly whither thou mayst plunge the blade; aim at this with thy sword, and thou shalt probe the snake to his centre. Thence go fearless up to the hill, drive the mattock, dig and ransack the holes; soon fill thy pouch with treasure, and bring back to the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... with orders to scatter bits of orange-peel and draw crosses and circles, in short, to mark out your road to this place.... Why, you look quite bewildered! What is it? Perhaps you don't recognize me? Lupin.... Arsene Lupin.... Ransack your memory.... Doesn't the name remind you ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... having separated the metal from the earth, and deposited it in the sands, thereby saving the expence of digging; hence it is esteemed an infallible gain to be able to divert a stream from its channel, and ransack its bed. From this account of the manner of gathering gold, it should follow that there are no mines of this metal in Brazil, and this the governor of Rio Grande, who happened to be at St Catharines, and frequently visited Mr Anson, did most confidently ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
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