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Downfall   Listen
noun
Downfall  n.  
1.
A sudden fall; a body of things falling. "Those cataracts or downfalls aforesaid." "Each downfall of a flood the mountains pour."
2.
A sudden descent from rank or state, reputation or happiness; destruction; ruin; as, the senator's unrestrained sexual escapades led to his downfall. "Dire were the consequences which would follow the downfall of so important a place."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Downfall" Quotes from Famous Books



... The external causes of the downfall of the Maccabean state, dynastic quarrels, are well known. Much less light has been thrown upon the inner, deeper-lying causes of the catastrophe. These are possibly to be sought in the priestly-political dualism of the Judean form of government. The ideal of a nation ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... settled down amongst Sclavonians, whom we conquered, but who never coalesced with us. The Austrian at present plays in Pannonia the Sclavonian against us, and us against the Sclavonian; but the downfall of the Austrian is at hand; they, like us, are not a ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... consideration and resolute expression of his final resolve made him freer and more cheerful at heart. He wrote to his sister at Bayreuth about it in the momentous second year of the war; and this letter is especially characteristic, for his sister also was determined not to survive him and the downfall of his house; and he approved this decision, to which, by the way, he gave little attention in his gloomy satisfaction at his own reflections. The two royal children had once secretly recited, in the house of their stern father, the parts of French tragedies; now their hearts beat again ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... the death of his uncle, and the downfall of his great expectations, which formed, as he said, an epoch in his history; and it was not until some little time afterwards, and in a very sober mood, that he resumed his ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... the landlady babbled of green peas at seven-thirty. What with your eternal tobacco, Watson, and your irregularity at meals, I expect that you will get notice to quit and that I shall share your downfall—not, however, before we have solved the problem of the nervous tutor, the careless servant, and the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that downfall of the British enemy, and the dramatic appearance of a Yankee eagle ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... enthusiastic spectator husky from howling. The strain was so great that it seemed an assured thing that something must give way. Oakdale had saved herself temporarily by changing pitchers, but shortly after the opening of the eighth inning it began to look as if the fatal downfall of the home team had ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... create a literature for the schools which should take the place of classic literature, while it produced discord for centuries, and influenced other great men to follow his example, had no permanent result. Perhaps the downfall of paganism may have removed all danger to the Christians from pagan philosophy and letters; at all events it is certain that in later centuries the Church was most efficient in preserving them. Tertullian held ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley

... depreciate all that was great and good did I see—And in the dominions of the great being I saw man [reduced?][97] far below the animals of the field preying on one anothers [sic] hearts; happy in the downfall of others—themselves holding on with bent necks and cruel eyes to a wretch more a slave if possible than they to his miserable passions—And if I said these are the consequences of civilization & turned to the savage world I saw only ignorance unrepaid ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... followed the storm was serene. The downfall of rain had almost evaporated. On the green meadow where Rabbit was in the habit of meeting his beloved, nothing was left of the storm, except ball-like masses of mist. It looked as though they were paradisiacal cotton-plants whose downy whiteness was ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... with Doubler. He had agitated the trouble, and he fully expected Langford to take him into his confidence should any aggressive movement be contemplated. He had even expected to be allowed to plan the details of the scheme which would have as its object the downfall of the nester, for thus he hoped to satisfy his personal vengeance against ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... for an instant with pain. As she then walked through the chamber, her children, Hortense and Eugene, on either side, and greeted all with a last soft look, a last inclination of the head, nothing could be heard but weeping, and even those who rejoiced over her downfall, because they hoped much from the new empress and the new dynasty, were now moved to tears by this silent and yet ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... compose what they believed to be rhymes, Johnny did not weaken. He turned his face to the wall and ignored them. Poor simps, what more could you expect? They went so far as to attempt some poetizing on the subject of Johnny's downfall in the corral, but no one seemed able to eliminate the word bronk at the end of the first line, "Johnny tried to ride a bronk." No one seemed able, either, to find any rhyme but honk. They tried ker-plunk, and although ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... may be called the attempt to get rid of Sensibility by the humorist gate of escape. Supposing no such attempt consciously to exist, it is, at any rate, the sign of an approaching downfall of Sensibility, of a feeling, on the part of those who have to do with it, that it is an edged tool, and an awkward one to handle. In comparing Xavier de Maistre with his master Sterne, it is very noticeable that while the one in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... expression of a possibly meager and somewhat puritanical nature; that Dwight's heart was a well-trained organ which would never commit an indiscretion, and that young Gathbroke would have sold the world for her if she had been a flower girl, or the downfall of her fortunes had sent her clerking, she was far too inexperienced to guess; and it is doubtful if the knowledge would have affected her had she possessed it. She was in the obstinate phase of first youth, common enough in girls of her sheltered class, where the opportunities ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... man—especially a man with much on his mind—needs relaxation and I would not choose the foreign movies with their morbid emphasis on problems and crime and sex in preference to the cleancut American product which always satisfied the nobler feelings by showing the reward of the honest, the downfall of evildoers and the purity of love and motherhood. Art is all very well, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... restlessness, and innovation, there remains but one old man, who seems to mourn the downfall of this ancient place. He holds no converse with human kind, but, seated on a wooden bench at the angle of the wall which fronts the crossing from Whitehall-place, watches in silence the gambols of his sleek and well-fed dogs. He is the presiding genius of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... she was still quite young, and she then married a French wine-merchant, Stephen Jumel, some twenty years her senior, but a man of much vigor and intelligence. M. Jumel made a considerable fortune in New York, owning a small merchant fleet; and after Napoleon's downfall he and his wife went to Paris, where she made a great impression in the salons by her vivacity and wit and by her ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... Then, out of the dim confusion, she grasped one thought and saw it stand quite clear before her eyes. She found difficulty in clothing it in words, but its meaning perhaps was this: That cedar stood in their life for something friendly; its downfall meant disaster; a sense of some protective influence about the cottage, and about her husband ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood

... 1813 and 1814, which brought about the downfall of Napoleon, gave new life to the Collection of Antiquities, and what was more than life, the hope of recovering their past importance; but the events of 1815, the troubles of the foreign occupation, and the vacillating policy of the Government until the fall of M. Decazes, all ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... our respect. Never on this earth was there such a splendid fighting machine as that "made in Germany." The armies against us are the last word in discipline, fitness, and equipment; and are led by men who, born in barracks, weaned on munitions, have but one aim and end in view "World-Dominion or Downfall." ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... these sharp-prowed, graceful ships, with their tapering masts and pretty sails, their eyes glistened, and they declared that never before had they seen anything so lovely. Their, pride in their canal-boats suffered a woful downfall. The boys proposed to try all the vessels on the canal at the back of the house, but ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... friendship of France was of the people, not alone of the king, for it survived the downfall of the monarchy and the rise of the French Republic. When Benjamin Franklin died the National Assembly at Paris went into three days' mourning for ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Prusias and demanded that the enemy of Rome should instantly be given up. To a brave soldier like Flaminius the mission was highly distasteful, which is another proof, if one were wanted, how great even in his downfall was the dread the Carthaginian inspired. 'Italy will never be without war while Hannibal lives!' had been the cry long, long ago, and it still rang proudly in his ears. He knew, and had always known, that his life would end by his own hand, and ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... every private letter that I have received from Germany, and every printed circular, pamphlet, or book on the war which has come to me from German sources insists on the view that, for Germany, it is a question between world empire or utter downfall. There is no sense or reason in this view, but the German philosophers, historians, and statesmen are all maintaining it ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... charged the scheme up to my snake-eyed friend and had a poorer opinion of his intelligence than I had hitherto entertained. Yet I was astonished that he should, even with the most hearty wish to bring about my downfall, contrive a plan that would inflict a heavy loss on his employer and possibly ruin him altogether. There was more beneath than I could fathom. My brain refused to work in the maze of contradictions and mysteries, plots and counterplots, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... learned, polished, and modest spirit" that ever separated from the church of England. The second was the elder, William Brewster, like Robinson, educated at Cambridge, who had served as one of the under-secretaries of state for many years. After the downfall of his patron, Secretary Davison, he accepted the position of postmaster and went to live at Scrooby in an old manor house of Sir Samuel Sandys, the elder brother of Sir Edwin Sandys, where, in the great hall, ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... Soledad, San Jose, San Juan Bautista, San Miguel, San Fernando, San Luis Rey, and Santa Inez, were added to the list. IX. Of the founding of the Missions of San Rafael and San Francisco Solano. X. Of the downfall of the Missions of California. XI. Of the old Missions, and life in them. XII. Of the Mission system in California, ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson

... unexpected interest in the shinny game was the first and chief cause of Foxy's downfall as leader of the school, and if Hughie had possessed his soul in patience he might have enjoyed the spectacle of Foxy's overthrow without involving himself in the painful consequences which his thirst for vengeance and his vehement ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... purchased in England and armed at a barren island near Madeira. Thence she went to Australia, and cruising northward in the Pacific to Bering Strait, destroyed the China-bound clippers and the whaling fleet. At last, hearing of the downfall of the Confederacy, she went ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... "classical;" but for which it would be difficult to find originals. In short, the whole thing is a feeler thrown out to see how far French impudence and French epicureanism in vice may carry themselves. It shall not be our fault if they do not experience an ignominious downfall, and beat a speedy retreat, to the tune of the "Rogue's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various

... the new. Below is a great crowd, but it is this little figure which first attracts the eye. The contrast between the mass of architecture and the free and glowing country beyond is not without meaning, and a broken Roman torso, lying neglected on the ground, symbolises the downfall of the Pagan Empire. The flight of steps, with the figure sitting below them, is an idea borrowed from Carpaccio, and perhaps taken by him from the sketch-book of Jacopo Bellini. The men on the left are portraits of members and patrons of the confraternity. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... anthology of the seventeenth century, the Epigrammatum delectus, a Port-Royal textbook published at Paris in 1659.[1] The essay was twice translated into French in the same century, but the use of the text in France did not survive, apparently, the downfall of the Port-Royal movement. It was, however, later adopted by Eton College, where it was used in the sixth form.[2] The text went through thirteen English editions between 1683 and 1762. The author ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole

... withstand a siege, but a water-hole supplied moisture for a considerable area of grass, and made a convenient place to turn the horses loose while the conspirators lay among the rocks and plotted the downfall of their chief. Purdy made straight for this gorge, and ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... mean deeds is, indeed, most wicked and cruel. He inspireth terror in all by the defects of his nature and the wickedness of his conduct. And deprived of his senses by Fate, he challengeth the very gods. In my vision I have seen every indication of his downfall. I have seen the Ten-headed, with his crown shaven and body besmeared with oil, sunk in mire, and the next moment dancing on a chariot drawn by mules. I have seen Kumbhakarna and others, perfectly naked and with crowns ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... signora. He remembered that the king had warned him to be upon his guard as to the communication of Madame Taliazuchi, that such mysteries were often nothing more than feigned intrigues, by which the discoverer sought to bring sorrow and downfall to an enemy. ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... not from lack of interest, God knows, or from unsympathetic feeling for this brave-hearted girl. The significance of the situation was what held me speechless. Here was help for Arthur without my braving all the horrors of Carmel's downfall by any impulsive act of my own. For a moment, hope in one burning and renewing flame soared high in my breast. I was willing to accept my release in this way. I was willing to shift the load from ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... Boschkai, the nobles of Hungary and Transylvania raised the standard of rebellion. The Hungarian insurgents were upon the point of making common cause with the discontented Protestants in Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia, and uniting all those countries in one fearful revolt. The downfall of popery in these lands would then have ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... age to the most fashionable circles of the capital. He was just so much younger than Lucretius that the Marian terror and the Sullan proscriptions can hardly have left any strong traces on his memory. When he died, Caesar was still fighting in Gaul, and the downfall of the Republic could only be dimly foreseen. In time, no less than in genius, he represents the fine flower of the Ciceronian age. He was about five and twenty when the attachment began between him and the lady whom he has immortalised under the name of Lesbia. By birth a Claudia, ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... think a good downfall plump would be the most wholesome thing that could happen to her; and besides, I never told her to take the man for her almoner and counsellor! I may have pointed to the gulf, but I never bade Curtia ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... He began to speak with a weary passion. To cast away the Lady Anne now were a madness. It would be to stand without a friend before all nations armed to their downfall. This King would do no jot to lose ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... heroes of the first water received a sad downfall when we were first asked by a kind friend, what the deuce we came home for? We had a good many becauses ready, but he overturned them altogether; so we had resort to the usual resource of men in such a position: we said, "There was a barrier of ice ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... despite their valor, Mahometan persistency prevailed, and the total expulsion of the Templars, with the rest of the Christian establishments from Palestine, followed the downfall ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Leigh Hunt as most unworthy, he being a writer in the cause of Liberty, and espousing those principles of good government for which Mr. Cobbett, as well as myself, had been so earnestly contending. I charged him with wishing to raise his fame and his fortune upon my friend's downfall; and this was so strongly impressed upon my mind, that I believed it to be the sole cause of his propagating what I considered the foulest and most wanton calumny. I consequently spared him not, and so far was my friend from checking my imprudent zeal, that he encouraged it; and what made me ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... been, he might have remained a Mayor to this day, and have talked till he lost his voice. He contracted a relish for statistics, and got philosophical; and the statistics and the philosophy together, led him into an act which increased his unpopularity and hastened his downfall. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... and by, came a failure more disastrous than anything he had foreseen—the downfall of his firm through the Napoleonic rascality of Ward. General Grant was utterly ruined; he was left without income and apparently without the means of earning one. It was the period when the great War Series was appeasing in the Century Magazine. General ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... patriotism; and those who, in the culminating catastrophe of all the separatist agitations, appealed to the sword, proved the sincerity of their convictions by their resolute courage and self-sacrifice. Nevertheless they warred against the right, and strove mightily to bring about the downfall and undoing of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... assembled, then care and doubt were fled; With jovial laugh they feasted; the board was nobly spread. The elder of the village rose up, his glass in hand, And cried, "We drink the downfall of an ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... scenes of the nowadays downfall of man and woman, I returned home. I lit my pipe and my memory went away to the months of song and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... cruelty may make men justly wish the downfall of abused powers, but I believe that no government ever yet perished from any other direct cause than its own weakness. My opinion is against an overdoing of any sort of administration, and more especially against this most ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... July, 1759); we knew that our troops followed them closely wherever they attempted to land. We have erred like you in the hopes we cherished. What fatality, what calamity and how many events unknown to us have led to your downfall? You do not know, my dear Sir, of the extent of your misfortunes. You imagine that the loss of the remainder of the colony is close at hand. You are right. This cannot be otherwise, since the relief which ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... laughed at that moment he would have made an enemy for life. But most fortunately he did not regard an antagonist's downfall as a fit subject for mirth. In fact, being of a chivalrous turn, he grabbed at the luckless Cinders, clutched his collar, and dragged him up again. And—perhaps it was the generosity of the action, perhaps only its obvious fearlessness—he won Cinders' heart from that instant. His hostility ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... point in his career does the speaker give his story? What have been his motives? How was he at first treated? What indicates that the change is not in him, but in the fickle mob? How does he view his downfall? In what thought lies his sense of triumph? How does his greatness of ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... they murdered him, they say, They hung him by main strength of hand. But the corpse it was buried and the doctors lost their prey, Oh, that harlot was bribed, I do believe; Bad women to a certainty are the downfall of men, As Adam was ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... interfere for the extinction of animosities (trifling in themselves, but made gigantic by continued contest) easy to be reconciled by a power to which all would feel compelled to bow—yet as pregnant with important consequences, if unchecked, as those causes which led for a period to the downfall of monarchy in these realms. The evil appears, so far as regards the Metropolitan Congregations, to have originated at, and been continued from, the period of the second settlement of the Israelites in this country. To the rapid increase of numbers ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown

... climacteric of his fortunes, when he was actually believed to have sent an embassy to the First Consul of the French Republic, instead of seriously and soberly seeking to consolidate his position, or resign it with honour, his insolence prepared the downfall which ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... as you said you would. No matter—I know the news, and I write to tell you so. Did you see anything particular in my face when you left me? I was wondering, in my own mind, whether the day of his downfall had come at last, and whether you were the chosen instrument for working it. You were, and ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... walls, were advancing towards each other, but there was still a space of from twelve to fifteen millimetres between them, and it seemed no longer possible to burden the two sides without risking a general downfall. The little mason was much disturbed. A graminaceous plant was growing near. The ant seemed anxious to take advantage of it, for it went to it and climbed up the stalk. After having examined and devised, ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... were determined to see how rapid my downfall should be before the close of the day, it continued to pursue me. I was left alone for a few minutes. A child some four years old entered and made a very critical inspection of my person. The result was clearly unfavorable, for she soon asked me to go away. Finding me indisposed to obey ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... all the more painful in contrast. Willow Lane, this miserable little street was named; but Angus McRae had long termed it, in his secret heart, the Jericho Road. For the old tavern at the end of it had proved the downfall of many a traveller on that highway, and many a man had Angus picked up, who had fallen ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... we find one of the most potent agents in effecting the downfall of the nations. Licentiousness sapped their vitality and weakened their prowess. The men who conquered the world were led captive by their own beastly passions. Thus the Assyrians, the Medes, the Grecians, the Romans, successively fell ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... as I came to the end of my story, "the fact is, the true cause of this bank's downfall was a rivalry—what one might call a business feud—which grew into being between it and a similar institution which had opened as its neighbor. In the competition which fell out they fairly cut each other's throat. They ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... his office. But it was the end of the government by the men of color and their allies in the State. President Hayes, in order to conciliate his constituents in the South, withdrew federal support, and the downfall was complete.[117] ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... received their directions from another in Holland, who sat with the States; and that the THIRD OF SEPTEMBER was pitched on for the attempt, as being found by Lilly's Almanack, and a scheme erected for that purpose, to be a lucky day, a planet then ruling which prognosticated the downfall of Monarchy. The evidence against these persons was very full and clear, and they were accordingly ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... selection, asking him to have it carved upon his gravestone should he die suddenly when away from his friends. My mother often repeats it, not realizing how far from the point it sounds to us who never knew him in his glory, but only in his downfall. ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... well that Joe was surprised to the point of amazement—and, Bud suspected, secretly gratified as well. Wherefore Bud had deliberately done what he could do to stimulate and emphasize both the surprise and the gratification. Why is it that most human beings feel a sneaking satisfaction in the downfall of another? Especially another who is, or has been at sometime, a rival in love ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... they had to suppose that Africa would for ever remain in a state of barbarism. If once an enlightened prince were to rise up there, his first act would be to annihilate the Slave Trade. If the light of heaven were ever to descend upon that continent, it would directly occasion its downfall. It was their interest then to contrive a mode of supplying labour, without trusting to precarious importations from that quarter. They might rest assured that the trade could not continue. He did not allude to the voice of the people in the petitions then lying on the table of the House; but he ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... most debased on earth, you will find women, beautiful, intellectual, accomplished and patriotic, who limit their knowledge of these fundamental points to a zeal for a clique, and the whole of whose eloquence on great national questions is bounded by a few heartfelt wishes for the downfall of their opponents;—" ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... suppression begun by Wolsey, go some way to prove that in the smaller houses at least indolence had passed into crime. A cry of "Down with them" broke from the Commons as the report was read. The country however was still far from desiring the utter downfall of the monastic system, and a long and bitter debate was followed by a compromise which suppressed all houses whose income fell below L200 a year. Of the thousand religious houses which then existed in England nearly four hundred ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... the next five years, he expanded with wonderful rapidity, built himself a splendid house, and took his place at the court end of the town, as one of our wealthy citizens. It was said of him that he had made a hundred thousand dollars. But the downfall came at last, as come I knew it must. He toppled over and fell down headlong. Then it was discovered that he had been making fictitious notes, purporting to be the bills payable of country merchants, which his own credit ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... his division were still in Nice, when we heard of the events of the 18th Brumaire, the overthrow of the Directorate and the establishment of the Consulate. My father had too much contempt for the Directorate to regret its downfall, but he feared that, intoxicated by power, General Bonaparte, after re-establishing order in France, would not restrict himself to the modest title of consul, and he predicted to us that in a short time he would aim to become ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... as much as the others do, and I shall be more careful than ever now, for I've had warning from Susie's downfall," ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... of the artist, and the politician's disillusions. Its physiognomy suggests the evolution of good and evil, battle and victory; the moral combat of '89, the clarion calls of which still re-echo in every corner of the world; and also the downfall of 1814. Thus this city can no more be moral, or cordial, or clean, than the engines which impel those proud leviathans which you admire when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a sublime vessel laden with ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... with thee; pause, or thou wilt die." "No more!" exclaimed the prince, "no more of this. Nor seek to frighten me with threatening words; Go, and to-morrow bring with thee thy friends, Thy father and thy brother, to behold With their own eyes thy downfall, and lament In sorrow over thy impending fate." "So let it be," said Rustem, and at once Mounted his ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... insurrection in Poland adds to the population of Asiatic Russia, and accomplishes very little else. The revolt of 1831 was prolific in this particular, and so was that of 1863. Revolutions in Poland have been utterly hopeless of success since the downfall and division of the kingdom, but ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... the Tories and joined the Whigs; Swift, who had been a Whig, joined the Tories. The queen's first ministry had consisted of Whigs and the more moderate Tories; but as she fell away from the Marlboroughs, she threw herself into the hands of the Tories, who had determined, and now achieved, the downfall of Marlborough. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... of being the most fearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical subjects." Pastor Russell does not approve of the Methodists, and he quotes twelve verses of Revelation, line by line and phrase by phrase, showing how the evil course and downfall of the Wesleyan system were divinely ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... depression; but on fuller investigation I find that they are inadequate to account for the colossal phenomena of the Drift itself—the presence of the clay and gravel, the great heat and the tremendous downfall of water. ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... his home to battle, To his father speaks, departing: "Fare thou well, my aged father! Wilt thou weep for me, thy hero, When thou hearest I have perished, Fallen from thy tribe forever, Perished on the field of glory?" Thus the father speaks in answer: "I shall never mourn the downfall Of my evil son, Kullervo; Shall not weep when thou hast perished; Shall beget a second hero That will do me better service, That will think and act in wisdom." Kullerwoinen gives this answer: "Neither shall I mourn thy ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... of the disturbance, it appeared, was the angry little chef of Sir Francis Clavering's culinary establishment. Shortly after Strong had quitted the room, and whilst Mr. Pen, greatly irate at his downfall in the waltz, which had made him look ridiculous in the eyes of the nation, and by Miss Amory's behaviour to him, which had still further insulted his dignity, was endeavouring to get some coolness of body and temper, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... change in fashion that finally caused the downfall of the wooden-wheeled clock," ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett

... were eminent and various, secured Napoleon's advancement at every step of his rapid career from obscurity to the imperial throne; and that the loss of her influence and counsels was the necessary harbinger of his downfall. ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... news of the downfall of her hopes the gentle face becomes piteously woeful; full of ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman

... these things indicate the ultimate failure and downfall of representative government? Was this idea which inspired so much of the finest and most generous thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a wrong idea, and must we go back to Caesarism or oligarchy or plutocracy or a theocracy, to Rome or Venice or Carthage, to the strong man or ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... a delectable little Puritan," said Masters with a laugh that was not wholly mirthful. "I shall now read you Tennyson's 'Maud,' as you approve of sentiment, at least. Tennyson will never cause the downfall of any woman, but if you ever see lightning on the horizon don't read 'The Statue and the Bust' with the ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... for the next few moments. Is it worth while to try to avoid the fate, which is certain? Let it come. The keystone of the arch had been removed, the downfall of the whole must follow. His room was already in darkness, but he did not light a lamp. The dancing flames of the fire-place gazed out sometimes above the embers, in curiosity, as if they would know whether any living being were there: and still he ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... the key, and were able to read the letters. Oh, most gracious sir, all your faithful servants were shamefully slandered and calumniated in these letters. Your highness even was not spared, and the young gentleman expressly wrote that he would do all he possibly could to effect the downfall of the Elector Frederick William. Of the States, he said that they were almost all friends of the Swedes and foes of the Emperor, and, above all, he represented me, Conrad von Burgsdorf, as a bitter enemy to the Emperor, and said that on that account all orders ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... the history of the Persian language, comprehending the Huzvaresh and Parsi, ends with the downfall of the Sassanians. The Arab conquest quenched the last sparks of Persian nationality; and the fire-altars of the Zoroastrians were never to be lighted again, except in the oasis of Yezd and on the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... Elizabeth, queen of Edward IV., was appointed to the see in 1482. His brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, was beheaded in Salisbury market place just before the battle of Bosworth. Woodville is said to have died of grief occasioned by the downfall of the fortunes of his house on the accession ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White

... Frye's reminiscences lies, however, in quite another direction. He was a friend of liberty, a friend of France, an admirer of Napoleon, and a hater of the Tory regime which brought about Napoleon's downfall. "France's attempts at European domination, in the Napoleonic era, are graciously described as but so many efforts towards spreading the light of civilization over Europe." These words, written about a quite recent work and a propos of the "Entente ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... been checked at a late stage of depreciation, by the act of Congress in question; that persons, who had clamored most on this subject, had been instrumental in hastening the discredit of our paper, by various commercial speculations, but that the downfall of the currency must be attributed principally to a want of funds for its support; for this object Congress were renewing their application in the most pressing terms; that the King of France's glory could not but suffer ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... increasingly probable, that, despite all the exaggerations necessary in a fiction of this kind, the warning contained in this account of a world-war is one that must remain in the minds of any thoughtful reader. Smallways' pert reflection on the causes of the immense downfall represents the wisdom that comes of bitter experience, and the application of it is very pertinent to present conditions. "There was us in Europe all at sixes and sevens with our silly flags and our silly newspapers raggin' ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford

... History part includes the books from Genesis to Esther, and relates the progress of the people of God from its separation as a family and its growth to be an important nation, to the downfall of its independence, and its partial recovery. The writers were a succession of prophets, who continually point to the hand of God in the events which ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... have elapsed since the establishment of this Government, and the Congress of the United States again assembles to legislate for an empire of freemen. The predictions of evil prophets, who formerly pretended to foretell the downfall of our institutions, are now remembered only to be derided, and the United States of America at this moment present to the world the most stable ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Zachary Taylor • Zachary Taylor

... government expelled him. and he took refuge first in England, whence he passed immediately to the island of Jersey, where he arrived on the fifth of August, 1852. In 1855 residence in Jersey was forbidden him and he removed to Guernsey, where he continued to reside till the downfall of Napoleon I. ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... signers of the "Declaration of Sentiments," issued by the American Anti-slavery Society in 1833, he had also the gratification of attending the last meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society, called to celebrate the downfall of Slavery in America, and the dissolution of an organization whose purpose was effected. There are those, who may remember how at that time, in perfect forgetfulness of self, the relation of the heroism of his friend, Elisha Tyson, seemed to recall ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... evenings, great tranquillity and darkness was spread through the town, because Karaites, contrary to the Talmudists, did not celebrate the holy day of Sabbath with an abundance of light and noisy joy and copious feasts, but they greeted it with darkness, silence, sadness, and meditation upon the downfall of the national temple, and the glory and might of the people of Israel. Then, from the blackest houses, from behind the small dark windows, there flowed into the quiet without the sound of singing; the parents were sadly telling ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... comparison, and he could see that his motor had not been at fault. Now the road, to his suddenly comprehending eyes, rose before him in a long, steady sweep of difficult grades, upward, steadily upward, with never a varying downfall, with never a rest for the motor which must climb it. And this was just the beginning! For Barry could ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... questions which inevitably arise between them solely from the standpoint which treats each side in the mass as the enemy of the other side in the mass is both wicked and foolish. In the past the most direful among the influences which have brought about the downfall of republics has ever been the growth of the class spirit, the growth of the spirit which tends to make a man subordinate the welfare of the public as a whole to the welfare of the particular class to which he belongs, the substitution of loyalty to a class for loyalty ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... begin to look on the other side of these questions. She would regain her footing in spite of her humiliating downfall, although there might still be a lingering sense of shame ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... The campaign was virtually over when Napoleon secured his retreat by the victory of Hanau on October 30; but it is impossible to sever it from the events outside Germany which were directly occasioned by the downfall of Napoleon's German domination. These are the revolt of Holland in November, that of Switzerland in December, and the Austrian attack on Northern Italy ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... Doles, apparently driven insane from poverty and want of employment, killed his wife and five children by splitting their heads open with an axe, and afterward thrust a knife into his own heart. Doles was at one time a wealthy citizen of this place, but speculation was the cause of his downfall." ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... Nunez de l'Arce in his drama played for the first time the past year. In the same palace, continues Miranda, died Elizabeth of Valois. There Philip IV. had farces played by ordinary comedians while the tragedy of his own downfall was enacting without. A fire reduced to ashes the haughty Alcazar at the moment when the Austrian dynasty disappeared from the realm, and on its ruins Philip V., first of the Spanish Bourbons, built the sumptuous palace that exists today. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... She went back. She thought again of this beautiful crescendo, of this gradual approach to the God from whom she had been if not entirely separated at any rate set a little apart. Could it have been only in order that her catastrophe might be the more complete, her downfall the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... N. {ant. 161} destruction; waste, dissolution, breaking up; diruption[obs3], disruption; consumption; disorganization. fall, downfall, devastation, ruin, perdition, crash; eboulement[French], smash, havoc, delabrement[French], debacle; break down, break up, fall apart; prostration; desolation, bouleversement[Fr], wreck, wrack, shipwreck, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... as contemners of the legitimate authority of Sovereigns. Lochiel would undoubtedly have laughed the doctrine of nonresistance to scorn. But scarcely any chief in Invernessshire had gained more than he by the downfall of the House of Argyle, or had more reason than he to dread the restoration of that House. Scarcely any chief in Invernessshire, therefore, was more alarmed and disgusted by the proceedings of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... his hands, throughout his long career, but defeat and total exclusion from all offices and honors, State and National. This class of politicians were too glad of the prospective division of his party and the downfall of his power, to be willing to re-assert their principles through a support of Benton. The loyal Union sentiments of the State in this way failed to be united, and a majority was elected to the legislature opposed to Benton. He was defeated of a re-election ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... that her self-respect had been wounded; the shock to her maidenly modesty, and the shame attendant upon the fact, affected her physically, as if she had been belittled and degraded by a personal stain; and this downfall caused her deep humiliation. By slow degrees, however, and notwithstanding this state of abject despair, she felt, cropping up somewhere in her heart, a faint germ of gladness, and, by close examination, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... maiden aunt, if you met them in the street, was quite out of the question, unless you previously doffed your hat; and, as for two young ladies laying their heads together and whispering soft secrets, no such thing was practicable. The downfall, therefore, of such stiff and unwieldy hats might have been foretold from an early period of their existence; it came, and with it a counter-revolution—a restoration of the legitimist bonnet. But, mark the malignity of a certain elderly personage, whose name and residence we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... they notice that in their maneuvers they had crossed the battle line and were now flying over territory occupied by their foes. Their one object was the German aeroplane and everything else had been forgotten in their desire to accomplish its downfall. ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay

... A good deal of oratory was called out by the debates on the commercial treaty with Great Britain negotiated by Jay in 1795, by the Alien and Sedition Law of 1798, and by other pieces of Federalist legislation, previous to the downfall of that party and the election of Jefferson to the presidency in 1800. The best of the Federalist orators during those years was Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, and the best of his orations was, perhaps, his ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... followed him; the queen, fearing that she would find Versailles dull and uncomfortable, remained behind; and the wily statesman made such good use of his opportunity that the king's consent was won to the downfall of his mother. She was soon arrested, and her sorrows lasted as long as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... enabled them to threaten the enemy's most important line of communication. On November 4 the Americans reached Stenay and on the 6th they crossed the Meuse. By the 7th they had entered Sedan, the place made famous by the downfall of Napoleon III in the war of 1870. On other parts of the American front the enemy retreated so fast that the infantry had to resort to motor cars to keep in touch with him. It was the same on other fronts. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... I will; but first let me right you up a bit; you look as if you had been hazed, upon my life you do;" and Jack laughed in spite of himself at the wretched little object before him, for dust, dancing, and the downfall produced a ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... under the eaves, sent the hay from the stacks flying through the yard, and lifted the ends of the roof shingles threateningly. It had gradually strengthened to a gale toward midday, and the steady downfall of flakes had been turned into a biting scourge that whipped up the soft cloak from the face of the open, treeless prairie and sent it lashing through the frigid air. Long before night had begun to settle ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... as his uncle had exiled himself while he was yet a child, and without previously having become known to the eyes of the nephew he had so much injured. But if Shamus occasionally drew a bitter and almost savage gratification from the downfall of his inhuman persecutor, no recurrence to the past could alleviate the misery of ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... on all sides, no sooner learned the disaster than they turned to fly: the rout was as fatal as it was sudden. The Christian reserve, just brought into the field, poured down upon them with a simultaneous charge. Boabdil, too much engaged to be the first to learn the downfall of the sacred insignia, suddenly saw himself almost alone, with his diminished Ethiopians and a handful of ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the commodore, drawing a long breath, as if he was just recovering the play of his lungs, "I should as soon think of laying a tax on punch. The country that pursues such a policy must, sooner or later, meet with a downfall. I never knew good come ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... temptation will come with added force, which may result in a sad fall. If this should happen it is most important that too much attention should not be paid to the incident. Instead, the beginner should pick himself up, and, making a mental note of the immediate cause of his downfall, thus benefiting by the experience, press on again towards freedom. It is most helpful to realize that not only is the sub-conscious mind willing to be guided aright, if we will only persevere long enough (until persevering itself becomes a habit), but that we ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin

... reading began to wake in her. If ever she came to school with her lesson unprepared, it was because some book of travel or history had had attractions too strong for her. And all that day she would go about like a guilty thing, oppressed by a sense of downfall and ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... thoroughgoing anti-Clerical. And though, as we have seen, it is only by political means that his doctrine can be put into practice, he not only never suggested a sectarian theocracy as a form of Government, and would certainly have prophesied the downfall of the late President Kruger if he had survived to his time, but, when challenged, he refused to teach his disciples not to pay tribute to Caesar, admitting that Caesar, who presumably had the kingdom of heaven within him as much as any disciple, had his place in the scheme of things. Indeed the ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... restless, troops were called and churches never closed. A wave of belated paganism rolled over the world; thinkers and steersmen of great political and religious organizations became genuinely alarmed. So had come the downfall of the classical world: a simple apparition in a far away Jewish province, and the Caesars fell supine—their empires cracked like mirrors! To imprison Illowski meant danger; to kill him would deify him, for in the blood of martyrs blossom the seeds of mighty religions. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... and withdrew—in what manner could not precisely be ascertained—but in a well-concerted effort to discharge a bottle at "the villain," the slender chain was severed that depended from the ceiling, and the metaphysician prostrated by the downfall of the lamp. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... valuable possession, but beware of being too sure of yourself. Pride goes before a fall, and overconfidence in his ability to improvise has been the downfall of many a would-be speaker. The speaker should strive to give the effect of spontaneity, but this can be done only with practice. The toast calls for the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... to their home in the beautiful Lake of the Thousand Islands. The pair were welcomed with songs and rejoicings to the spirit shores, and loud were the revels, and boisterous the mirth, of its little inhabitants. Triumphs were made for them, mingled with rejoicings, at the downfall of their long-feared and much hated foe. And when they had displayed their love for the pair, by all the means within their power—dancing, feasting, and kind speech—they dismissed them to their homes, with many blessings upon their ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... the winde) seemd to bow down the head as cheering Mirrha, who did comfort want being amaz'd at what Diana saide, Hauing recouer'd sence, she flies the place, For feare of Phebaes comming to the chace: to Saba land she hies, where all affraide, my muse shall sing the downfall ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... the policy of Thorough. We have adopted the selfsame principle. Nobody and nothing must stand in the way of our ends. We stand up for humanity in the mass. Bourgeois society is bound to go under. And to hasten its downfall any one of our members is proud to offer himself as a sufferer, or as even a martyr to death, for the Cause. We aim at producing a state of society in which men may live together in harmony without laws. You must see that we are merely ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... my arm to strike him, but what would have been the good? He must have taken his precautions. The paper would remain. And then there is no revenge in killing a man... My hatred went further than that... It demanded his ruin, his downfall; and, to achieve that, there was but one way: to cut his claws. Daubrecq, deprived of the document that gives him his immense power, ceases to exist. It means immediate bankruptcy and disaster... under the most wretched conditions. That is what I ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... the monasteries, comprising the two chief classes of abbeys and priories into which they were divided. The coming storm was heralded at St. Mary's on 11th November, 1535 on which date, "by command of the king," a solemn procession was held in the church to inaugurate its downfall by a Litany, in which the Prior and Canons took part, "with their crosses, candlesticks and vergers before them," as if in mockery of the state of which they were so soon to be deprived. The "Act of Suppression," ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley

... recognized opponent of the party in power. It would be beside the purpose to attempt to enumerate the points in which the natural antagonism of the federalists and the republicans came to the surface during the decade of contest which ended in the downfall of the federal party in 1800-1. In all of them, in the struggles over the establishment of the Bank of the United States and the assumption of the State debts, in the respective sympathy for France and Great Britain, in the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... period treated of is the most turbulent in the history of Judea. The conflict of passions and intrigues is going on that preceded the downfall of the kingdom of Judah and the great Assyrian invasion. Moral disorder reigns everywhere, iniquity and lies rule in place of justice. The upright tremble and hope, encouraged by the prophets. The wicked are defiant, and give themselves ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... far as courage and zeal were required in conducting the affairs of war. But the impetuosity of his character, and a certain indifference in regard to the claims of the national faith, paved the way for his downfall and the extinction of his family. The scene of Gilboa, which terminated the career of the first Hebrew monarch, exhibits a most affecting tragedy; in which the valour of a gallant chief, contrasted with his despair and sorrow, throws a deceitful lustre over an event which the reader ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... great troubles at hand; the apostle of the past; the preacher of an impossible restoration; the witness to his contemporaries that their degeneracy was incorrigible and their doom hopeless; and that another seal in the book was broken, and a new era of calamity and downfall opened in the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... and all the train around her madden in her suit; the wide palace echoes to their wailing, and from it the sorrowful rumour spreads abroad throughout the town. All hearts sink; Latinus goes with torn raiment, in dismay at his wife's doom and his city's downfall, defiling his hoary hair with soilure of ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... all, Join in my doleful lay, Mourn for the times none can recall, With hearts to grief a prey. We’ll mourn the washer’s sad downfall In our regretful strain, Lamenting on the days gone by Ne’er to ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson

... time; but even his influence was insufficient to bring about a reconciliation between the catholics and the protestants of that city. During the hundred days betwixt Napoleon's return from the Isle of Elba, and his final downfall, not a single life was lost in Nismes, not a single house was pillaged; only four of the most notorious disturbers of the peace were punished, or rather prevented from doing mischief, and even this was not an ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... but not the Deluge. In the fact that the cause of the great inundation is a quarrel between two chief Pagan deities, there seems to be preserved an old native tradition. In the Pampangan story not only is the curse of the crow attributed to a Pagan deity, Sinukuan, but the occasion of the bird's downfall is a pestilence. There is no mention whatever of a flood, nor is ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... for the last ten years because I got into trouble over a few accounts at the bank—and considering the sorry figure I cut now in consequence—I don't know why you should be so careless of the possibility of partaking my downfall! I should say that it would be rather worse for you than it has been for me; and it hasn't been very nice for me, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... have lamented, the street bonfires, as there would be never a fagot left to burn the heretics. "If it had been a Protestant chapel," the Puritans cried, "the Jesuits would have called the calamity an omen of the speedy downfall of heresy." A Catholic writer replied "with a word of comfort," and pronounced the accident to be a presage of good fortune to Catholics and of the overthrow of error and heresy. This zealous, but not well-informed, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... which failed to bring to the Guardian the resignation of one or more of its agents, with none to take their places except the vultures, many of whom Mr. Gunterson remembered to have assisted in accelerating the downfall of some of the other underwriting institutions with which he had been connected. With a chill of dismay he read of what a splendid opening awaited the Guardian in the general agency of Henry Trafalgar and Company of Memphis, or Bates and ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... with Maury when they learned of Lincoln's assassination, and accompanied him to Mexico, where he served as Major General in Maximilian's army until the downfall of the usurping Emperor. In referring to his experiences in Mexico he dwelt with much emphasis upon the Empress Carlota and her interesting personality. He described her as especially kind and sympathetic and as treating Maury and himself with distinguished consideration at her ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... time before I was able to walk. But as quickly as possible I went to the rescue of that sheep because I had caused his downfall. He was still breathing, but unable to stand. With great effort, for he was heavy and I was shaking from my fall, I carried him down to the stream and soused him in its icy water. He revived at once. The camera had smashed to pieces before ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... spheres, in all vocations of life; I have great faith in humanity, especially when sustained by divine helps; but we must not subject the bow to too much tension lest it break. The personating of characters which have in them a spice of wickedness, the taking of the part in a play which represents the downfall of a virtuous person, the setting forth of the passions of love and hatred, must in time produce a powerful effect on the mind of a young woman, and there is danger that the neophyte on the stage will be contaminated with the base things of life ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... fattening beeves, planting trees, clapping vagabonds "i' th' stocks," and doing all and everything that appertaineth to a country gentleman, and also, the queen's poor esquire, I might have, until the downfall of Napoleon, and the reduction of the militia, events cotemporaneous, smelt powder on the Phoenix Park on field days, and like Hudibras, of pleasant memory, at the head of a charge of foot, "rode forth a coloneling." In place, however, of meddling ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... him. As yet she had no least comprehension of this sense of being kindred to nature. It is rare in youth. As he spoke, a little breeze stirred the old fellow's topmost crest and a light downfall of snow fell on the pair. Leila laughed, but the boy cried, "There! he has answered. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... old, yea, are mighty in power?" And in his conscious integrity he might well shrill a cry to his own breaking heart. Job is sure (some things calamity reveals) integrity is not awarded according to its character and worth, while his three friends see in Job's downfall a disclosure of his wickedness. They urge him to repent. They think there can be no arguing against doom. God has smitten him for his sins,—this they all agree, and say no other thing. Poor Job! His friends consider his hypocrisy proven, and his wife has become foreigner ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... while, it was only the gray of the morning, with but a streak of brightness along the edge of the sky, where Midas could not see it. He lay in a very unhappy mood, regretting the downfall of his hopes, and kept growing sadder and sadder, until the earliest sunbeam shone through the window and gilded the ceiling over his head. It seemed to Midas that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected in rather a singular way on the white covering of the bed. Looking more closely, what ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... most puritanical dread of impropriety, is worn to a shadow. It rests with you whether this state of things is to continue or not. You and, so far as I can see at present, you alone, are in a position to arrange for the downfall of Simpkins. Is it or is it not your duty, your simple duty, to do what you can, even at the cost of some little temporary inconvenience ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... intoxication, no one was drunk, but of jubilation; we had been jocose and rowdy, we had told stories of all kinds. The young lord and I did not "pull well together," but nothing decidedly unpleasant occurred until someone proposed to drink to the downfall of Gladstone. The beautiful lord got on his legs and began a speech. Politically it was sound enough, but much of it was plainly intended to turn me into ridicule. I answered sharply, working gradually up crescendo, until at last, to bring matters ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... state of things of which you little dream. To-day I confess I am under a cloud. In the to-morrow I hope and pray that I may be able to expose the guilty and throw a new light upon those who have conspired to secure my downfall." ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... more pleasant. We sat down together, and alone. Hot batter-cakes, etc., which were covered up near the fire, were soon placed upon the table, by the servant, and our plain, old-fashioned mother (who was no woman for nonsense) very unceremoniously told me to "pour out the coffee." What a downfall for ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... arrest. But as, during the Colonel's absence, the two young ladies lived much retired, this circumstance fortunately had not reached Woodbourne. A letter had already made Miss Bertram acquainted with the downfall of the expectations which had been formed upon the bequest of her kinswoman. Whatever hopes that news might have dispelled, the disappointment did not prevent her from joining her friend in affording a cheerful reception to the Colonel, to whom she thus ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... ourselves, or break another's backs, and both are ruined and consumed in the end. Miserable wretches, to fat and enrich ourselves, we care not how we get it, Quocunque modo rem; how many thousands we undo, whom we oppress, by whose ruin and downfall we arise, whom we injure, fatherless children, widows, common societies, to satisfy our own private lust. Though we have myriads, abundance of wealth and treasure, (pitiless, merciless, remorseless, and uncharitable in the highest degree), and our poor brother ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... had done on the previous evening after making arrangements with old Maggs. He climbed the hill north of the pond, not so much in the hope of seeing Rosie or any one else, as to haunt the scenes so closely associated with his spiritual downfall. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King



Words linked to "Downfall" :   rise, ice crystal, frost mist, atmospheric condition, poudrin, hail, conditions, snowfall, weakening, frost snow, fine spray, failure, finish, ice needle, snow, ruination, rain, virga, ruin, diamond dust, anticlimax



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