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Tearing down   /tˈɛrɪŋ daʊn/   Listen
Tearing down

noun
1.
Complete destruction of a building.  Synonyms: demolishing, leveling, razing.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tearing down" Quotes from Famous Books



... bunking in one of the shacks which he had secured the privilege of tearing down and it was apparent to the scouts that his knowledge of camping was primitive. But Pee-wee, out of the greatness of his scout heart, volunteered to be his guide, philosopher, and ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... her companion; "but, you know, if we once let people know what this water will do, we should be overrun with creatures bathing themselves beautiful, and trampling our moss and tearing down our rose-trees, and we should never have ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... The river was out of banks clear up into the cottonwoods and out on to the bottom, going down in a raging, muddy torrent, literally full of huge, grinding ice-cakes, up-ending and rolling over each other as they went, tearing down trees in their paths, ripping, smashing, tearing at each other and everything in their course in the effort to get out and away. The spectacle held us spellbound. None of us had ever seen anything to compare with it, for the spring freshets of other years had been mild affairs ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... In the shadowed depths, they could see the River tearing down a white fume, a pantherine thing leaping—leaping—; and the hollow roar of water filled the canyon with a quiver that was tangible. Far below, the eagle flew lazily, lifting and falling to the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... destruction of all crosses throughout the kingdom. They ordered Sir Robert Harlow to superintend the levelling to the ground of St. Paul's Cross, Charing Cross, and that in Cheapside, and a contemporary print shows the populace busily engaged in tearing down the last. Ladders are placed against the structure, workmen are busy hammering the figures, and a strong rope is attached to the actual cross on the summit and eager hands are dragging it down. Similar scenes were enacted in many other towns, villages, and cities of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... their camp at a little distance from the river, and surveyed the passage, they began to pile it up, giant-like, tearing down the neighboring hills; and brought trees pulled up by the roots, and heaps of earth to the river, damming up its course; and with great heavy materials which they rolled down the stream and dashed against the bridge, they forced away the beams which supported ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... perpendicular, and about six feet above the water. They could not get out without breaking down the bank so as to form an incline. Already these enormous creatures, which are accustomed to such difficulties, were tearing down the earth with their tusks and horny-toed feet; still it was a work of time, that ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... that you would have thought the earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all cutting capers in the light, with their arms lifted high, when the stout man with mustaches came tearing down to the river, a tin pail in his hand, assured me that everybody was 'behaving splendidly, splendidly,' dipped about a quart of water and tore back again. I noticed there was a hole in ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... are burdened with ingrate personalities: creatures on whom sensuality has done its disintegrating work; whose best pleasure is to exempt themselves from any sense of degradation caused by fawning on the one strong enough to be their master, by tearing down as they may his work and reputation, circulating lies about him, tormenting him in every indirect way they can. Among such as these, and probably quite lonely among the, the successor of Augustus would lave to live, fulfilling Heaven's work in spite of them. Where to find a Soul capable, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... for once in love, she'll never be as free and joyous again. But it can't be helped; it's the destiny of women, and I only hope this Warner is worthy of her. But he aint. He's too wild—too full of what Hagar Warren calls bedevilment. And Maggie does everything he tells her to do. Not content with tearing down his bed-curtains, which have hung there full twenty years, she's set things all cornerwise, because the folks do so in Worcester, and has turned the parlor into a smoking-room, till all the air of Hillsdale can't take away that tobacco scent. Why, it almost knocks ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... his way. His efforts to discipline her had resulted in an open breach with his brother-in-law and caused discord between himself and his wife. His disputes with Deforrest about the squatters had not turned out to his satisfaction. His efforts to drive the old witch off his lake-land by tearing down her shack had opened to her the house that he himself owned. He had had to pay Sandy Letts the $5,000 reward for the capture of Andy Bishop, and the whole city had laughed at the price paid for ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... sitting at dinner in the kitchen one day when out comes Fruen from the front door of the house, and goes tearing down the road, all wild and excited. Then the Captain came out, calling after her: "Lovise, what is it, Lovise? Where are you going?" But Fruen only called back: "Leave ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... and then it would whirl round and round, boiling with anger and beating against its rocky walls, until it had hewn out quite a lofty chamber. Then sooner or later it would reach some softer formation which would yield, and the great volume of water would rush through, tearing down everything in its way, until it last it found itself once again ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... gentleman, had at first deranged his senses, and then driven him into a state of abject despair, but the practical remarks which succeeded seemed to have a more direful effect upon him. The idea of the being with the sun-bonnet and the umbrella entering into his life at Midbranch, tearing down the broad steps which his honored father had built, cutting a gravelled path across the green turf which had been the pride of generations, and doing, no man could say what else, of advice and direction, seemed to strike a chill of terror into his ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... Bartholomew, received them with a cry of insulting defiance and a shower of arrows. The contest being thus engaged, forty of the French remained on the field. The rest fled precipitately for refuge to the castle of Scaletta; and the Sicilians, tearing down the banners of Charles, marched upon Messina to compel her to join the rebellion. In the city thousands were willing, but none had courage, for the work, till a man of the people—Bartholomew Maniscalco by name—conspired with several others to give ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... from above did serious damage among them, but the real effect of these was more moral than physical. The sound of the great masses of stone, plunging down the hillside, setting in motion numbers of small rocks as they came, tearing down the bushes and small trees, was exceedingly terrifying at first; but as block after block dashed down, doing comparatively little harm, the Spaniards became accustomed to them; and, keeping under the shelter of masses of rock, to the last moment, prepared all their energies for the attack. ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... bicyclist shot by them. As he did so he straightened up in the saddle, and to their surprise gave them a regulation scout salute. Then he went tearing down the road in ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... there was nothing to be seen when the smoke cleared off. But in a few minutes those remaining gathered into a body again, and immediately two more shells exploded in their midst. The few remaining could now be seen coming out of the smoke and tearing down a slope to a nullah a short way off, and they were not seen again. Major —— was here called away to interpret to three Turkish prisoners who had come in, but I have heard no particulars of their examination.... ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... the larger of the two sloops captured at Gibraltar; to which vessel was assigned the leading part in Captain Blood's scheme. They began by tearing down all bulkheads, until they had reduced her to the merest shell, and in her sides they broke open so many ports that her gunwale was converted into the semblance of a grating. Next they increased by a half-dozen the scuttles in her deck, whilst into her hull they packed all the tar and ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... In tearing down old masonry iron bonds and clamps are often found which are as free from rust, so far as they are covered with mortar, as they were the day they left the blacksmith's hands. A French engineer met with such a phenomenon when he uncovered the anchor plates of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... upper story, five years before. The tenants had all been changed two or three times; but the "Minford tragedy" was still a current legend among them. Murders, or strange homicides, are fixtures of houses where they occur. Nothing obliterates their memory but tearing down the houses, and building anew—which is the course of treatment that the proprietor was proposing to himself, in consequence of the steady depreciation of rents. Pet never passed that house, or dared to look at ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... would gladly make any sort of peace that he desired. 12. Those who remained here and planned to overthrow the government, brought Cleophon to trial on the plea that he did not come to the camp to sleep, but really because he spoke against tearing down the walls. When they had packed the jury, and those who desired to establish an oligarchy had come in, they killed him on this charge. 13. Theramenes afterwards came from Sparta. Some of the Strategi and Taxiarchs, among them Strombichides and Dionysodorus, and other citizens who were well ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... were religious groups and temperance groups, and groups devoted to the tearing down or raising up of most things except the Government; for on that day there were no Anarchist or Socialist shouters, as ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... I, springing forward, and tearing down the tatties from the window. Mrs. Jow. ran shrieking out of the room, Julia fainted, the cursed black children squalled, and their d——d nurse fell on her knees, gabbling some infernal jargon of Hindustanee. Old Jowler at this juncture entered ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... gentlemen walked down to see the Lightning coach come in. Punctual to the minute, the coach crowded inside and out, the guard blowing his accustomed tune on the horn—the Lightning came tearing down the street, and pulled up at ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... spread in the neighbourhood of Port Gibson, that a strange monster, of the ourang-outang species, had penetrated the canebrakes upon the western banks of the Mississippi. Some negroes declared to have seen him tearing down a brown bear; an Arkansas hunter had sent to Philadelphia an exaggerated account of this recently discovered animal, and the members of the academies had written to him to catch the animal, if possible, alive, no matter at what expense. A hunting expedition ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... king could have sought no more dangerous place of shelter. Vienna was the capital of Duke Leopold of Austria, whom Richard had mortally offended in Palestine, by tearing down his banner and planting the standard of England in its place. Yet all might have gone well but for the servant, who, while not a traitor, was as dangerous a thing, a fool. He was sent out from the inn to exchange the gold byzantines of the travellers for Austrian ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... at once, tearing down over the meadow in a graceful curve to leap a hedge into a ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown

... one!" was Farron's agonized cry as he struck his heels to his horse's ribs and went tearing down the valley in mad and desperate ride ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... volunteers, thousands of young Western men who have remained to see it through, do the work. The troops have all that they can do to handle the crowds in the streets and prevent panics. The work of dynamiting, tearing down and rescuing is in the hands of ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... the drapery of the bed in which their youngest child was sleeping all in flames; then they saw a light form tearing down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... faces of the advancing Spaniards. They declared to the Tlascalans that when there was nothing left to eat they would eat them, and if there was nothing else, they would live on one another until they were all dead. They mocked and jeered at the tribes tearing down the houses, and with grim humor pointed out to them that they would have to rebuild the city whoever was successful in the strife, for either the Aztecs or the Spaniards would compel them to do so. So the fighting went on ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... no way of knowing whether this bullet hit either of the redcoats, but he had evidence that it was effective in one way, for he heard the British soldiers going tearing down the slope, through the underbrush at a great rate. They had undoubtedly been seized with a panic ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox

... times in the Scottish universities. Prohibitions of noise and disturbance in lecture-rooms abound in all statutes. At Vienna, students in Arts are exhorted to behave like young ladies (more virginum) and to refrain from laughter, murmurs, and hisses, and from tearing down the schedules in which the masters give notice of their lectures. At Prague, also, the conduct of young ladies was held up as a model for the student at lecture, and, at Angers, students who hissed in contempt of a doctor were to ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait

... themselves on their escape; but fancy their consternation when they found themselves once more, and for the third time, exposed to the very same danger! Again came a set of bundles rolling and tearing down the slope, the billets rattling and crackling as they rolled; again they went swishing by; again, by the merest accident, did they miss the travellers, as they ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... decided to exterminate the Christians and sought to publish the bloody edict, Pancratius in a perilous attempt succeeded in tearing down and burning the royal proclamation. Corvinus had a narrow escape from the emperor's wrath, and his hatred of Pancratius increased. Unable to secure another victim, Corvinus seized his old schoolmaster and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... words to you.” All the animals listening, he continued, “We will all have this man for our brother, but I found him, so I think he ought to live with us big wolves.” All the others said that this was well; so the wolf went into the hole, and, tearing down the rest of the dirt, dragged out the almost dead man. They gave him a kidney to eat, and when he was able to walk a little, the big wolves took him to their home. Here there was a very old blind wolf, who had ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... heard a loud cry of fear, and a moment afterward an urchin—one of the choir lads—came tearing down the path as though pursued by a legion of fiends. Giles caught him by the collar as he ran panting and ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... Government, or whispering in impotent discontent "Viva la Repubblica!" and they and their descendants will go on whispering something to each other to the end of time, while mightier hands than theirs are tearing down empires and building up irresistible coalitions, and drawing red pencil-marks through ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... to its feet and went forward, tearing down the fences in its path and trampling the long grass in the fields. A mile away the long, flowery slopes ended in a knobbed hill revealed through smoke. That was Little Round Top, and its possession meant victory or defeat. The corps was halted and ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... the family, the house is destroyed, or the cave permanently abandoned; and many other superstitious apprehensions of one kind or another may thus influence the people. Very often a man moves for the sake of benefiting the land, and after tearing down his house he immediately plants corn on the spot on which the house stood. A family may thus change its abode several times a year, or once a year, or every other year. The richest man in the Tarahumare country, now dead, had five caves, and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... hoofs, a band of masked horsemen came tearing down the street, whirled into the open space before the jail, and began shooting into the mob. The horsemen were dressed in black, and every man ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... when she had donned her dress and tucked her unruly curls into place, she looked as fresh and sweet as a flower. She finished her toilet in breathless haste, and as she flung open the door of her room she nearly ran into Phil, who was tearing down the hall ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... part of the house, until one part after another had been removed from the bottom upwards, and a new house, as it were, inserted in its place. Thus, while comparatively none of the old structure remained, the new one merely passed for a repair. Now, as the tearing down and building up was done gradually, my father determined not to quit the house, that he might better direct and give his orders; as he possessed a good knowledge of the technicalities of building. At the same time, he would not suffer his family to leave him. This new ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... "I don't know how he found out we were on the trail. I suppose the old lady 'phoned him. Anyhow, while we were camped for noon yesterday"—her face flamed again at thought of that tender, beautiful moment when they were resting on the grass—"while we were at our lunch he came tearing down the hill on that big bay horse of his and took a flying jump at Wayland. As Wayland went down he struck his head on a stone. I thought he was dead, and I was paralyzed for a second. Then I flew at Cliff and just about choked ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... incarnate. All my dreams of equal combat had not prepared me for superhuman power on his part, such utter impotence on mine. I tried to wrench myself from his murderous clasp, and was nearly felled by the top of the bunk. I hurled myself out sideways, and out he came after me, tearing down the peg to which his handcuffs were tethered; that only gave him the better grip upon my throat, and he never relaxed it for an instant, scrambling to his feet when I staggered to mine, for by them alone was he fast now to ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... especially among those advanced lovers of art who are beginning to realize that the old impressionistic school lacked emphasis and individuality in its work. But I expect to stand firm, and when everybody else nearly is a Futurist and is tearing down Sargent's pictures and Abbey's and Whistler's to make room for immortal Young Messers, I and a few others will still be holding out resolutely to ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... for me to say, also, that it is getting late, and I want to see the sun 'set in the sea,' as Bess calls it, this last evening of our stay at Cedar Keys. And there's Bess now, little plague that she is!" turning to meet the flying figure that came tearing down the garden path, with hair streaming in the wind, and sash untied and trailing on the ground in ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... more certain that our doom had come. I became very nervous and frightened at what was going on. When all at once there was a scattering, and running, and yelling at the top of their voices, looking for squaws and children, and tearing down tents, while we two sat in ours in the depths of despair, waiting for further developments. I clung to Mrs. Delaney like my own mother, not knowing what to do. The cause of the stampede we were told was that they had heard the report of a gun. That report was fortunate for us, as ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney

... was checked, but the strain was awful. A mass of ice, hundreds of tons weight, was tearing down towards the bow. There was no hope of resisting it. Time was not even afforded to attach a buoy or log to the cable, so it was let slip, and thus the Dolphin's best bower ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... bees, ye say? Air they loose too?" screamed Bridget, jerking off her sunbonnet and tearing down her hair. "Is it bees as well as cows in me hid, an' ye standin' laffin loike ter kill yersilf at the very idee of me bein' murdered ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... his Squire rode in among them, overthrowing their canopies and images, tearing down their banner, and putting the priests and ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... consists of two-wire cable, protected with a covering of flexible steel. It is installed out of sight between the walls, and provides suitable outlets for lamps, etc., by means of metal boxes set flush with the plaster. It is easily installed in a house being built, but requires much tearing down of plaster for an old house. Since its expense prohibits it in the average farm house, this system will not be ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... Chosroes, disregarding the agreement, took the city of Callinicus which was entirely without defenders. For the Romans, seeing that the wall of this city was altogether unsound and easy of capture, were tearing down portions of it in turn and restoring them with new construction. Now just at that time they had torn down one section of it and had not yet built in this interval; when, therefore, they learned that the enemy were close at hand, they carried out the most precious of their treasures, and the wealthy ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... he, too, came out. The carriage was tearing down the hill towards them in the moonlight, and Stafford saw that the horses were rushing along with lowered heads and that the driver had ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... Whales, we caught sight of a big Norwegian naval ensign flying on the Barrier at Cape Man's Head, and I then knew that the southern party had arrived. We went therefore as far south as possible and blew our powerful siren; nor was it very long before eight men came tearing down. There was great enthusiasm. The first man on board was the Chief; I was so certain he had reached the goal that I never asked him. Not till an hour later, when we had discussed all kinds of other things, did I enquire "Well, of course ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... from the inhabitants of the surrounding counties—that for weeks together, mobs consisting of hundreds and thousands, kept them in a state of constant siege, laying waste their lands, destroying their cattle and provisions, tearing down their houses, ravishing the females, seizing and dragging off and killing the men. Not one of the thousands engaged in these horrible outrages and butcheries has, so far as we can learn, been indicted. The following extract of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... ago I saw Monte Devine. He came tearing down the street, hell-bent-for-election. Down at the saloon on the corner he picked up two men you know, Al. One of them was Jake Bettins and the other was Ed True. The three hit the pike at a regular two-forty clip for the Big Run road. Those birds don't go chasing around on a day like this just to ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... the Duke of Austria he had been recognized and arrested, for Leopold of Austria had more than one ground of hatred of Richard, notably because his claim to something like an equal sovereignty had been so rudely and contemptuously disallowed in the famous incident of the tearing down of his banner from the walls of Acre. But a greater sovereign than Leopold had reason to complain of the conduct of Richard and something to gain from his imprisonment, and the duke was obliged to surrender his prisoner ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... us crowded into the buggy, Aunt Olivia grasped the whip before we could prevent her and, leaning out, gave poor Dick such a lash as he had never felt in his life before. He went tearing down the steep, stony, fast-darkening road in a fashion which made Peggy and me cry out in alarm. Aunt Olivia was usually the most timid of women, but now she didn't seem to know what fear was. She kept whipping and urging poor Dick the whole way to the station, quite oblivious ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the backs of the young cattle, and frightening the creatures so that they rushed about the field in great consternation; and finally, as he grew bolder and more frequent in his descents, the whole herd broke over the fence, and came tearing down to the house "like mad." It did not seem to be an assault with intent to kill, but was, perhaps, a stratagem resorted to in order to separate the herd and expose the lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. When he occasionally alighted upon the oaks that stood near, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... hoofs, and over in the village there was hurrying to and fro and growing clamor of squaws and children, and dusky women could be seen clutching their little ones and speeding away towards the hills down-stream, while others began rapidly tearing down the painted lodges of hide or cloth, and such Indians as had no mount, but were skulking under the banks or among the bluffs across the stream, could be seen leaping and crouching and racing back toward ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... the American flag, and, in jumping, Booth's spurs caught in the folds, tearing down the flag, the assassin falling heavily to the stage and spraining his ankle. He arose, however, and walked theatrically across the stage, brandished his knife and shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis!" and then added, "The South ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... only that mad headlong flight back across the park, where the very air seemed full of sobbing, mocking voices, and the ground beneath my feet swayed and heaved. I could not even think coherently. I heard the motor go tearing down the road past me, and come to a standstill at the turn. Still I had no thought of any danger. It never occurred to me to leave the footpath and make my way back to the "Brand," as I might well have done, by a more circuitous route. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... have been under our care are very different from those who come from other prisons. We also may state that when they left Newgate to go to Botany Bay, such a thing was never known in the prison before as the quietness and order with which they left it; instead of tearing down everything, and burning it, it was impossible to leave it more peaceably. And as a proof that their moral and religious instruction have had some effect upon their minds, when those poor creatures were going to Botany Bay, the little fund we allowed them to collect for themselves, in ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... the king, that they might satisfy themselves that he had not been carried away. While he was speaking, another messenger entered with the announcement that the mob had already proceeded to violence, and were tearing down the palisades of the palace. While he was yet speaking, a messenger from the Duke of Orleans arrived, imploring the queen regent not to attempt the removal of the king, and assuring her that it ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... bad if he could control himself. At the minute when he's tearing down the house he wants you to tell him that ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... true! It is not true!" he echoed stupidly. It seemed to him that the very skies must fall, and the earth perish, if they could take away Hirschvogel. They might as soon talk of tearing down God's sun out of ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... Brussels, the spirit of progress: has seized the leading circles, and the hand of improvement has commenced tearing down her ancient houses and building new streets upon the modern plan and style of architecture. One of the most handsome avenues in the world, being from 290 to 350 feet in width, and about two miles long, runs ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... good sized creek that comes tearing down and tumbles into a sort of cave. Nobody knows where it comes out, and if it ever catches a man he's gone. The hole and suction ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... down to us many curious details of the mode of procedure upon these occasions—how the search-party would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's thickness of his pursuers, ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... rearrangement of the district, then it becomes the duty of the local authorities to take the matter in hand. They are bound to draw up and, on approval by the proper superior authorities, to carry out a plan for widening the streets and approaches to them, providing proper sanitary arrangements, tearing down the old houses, and building new ones in sufficient number and suitable character to provide dwelling accommodation for as many persons of the working class as were displaced by the changes. Private rights or claims are ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... the house]. It's Mr Hushabye turning on all the lights in the house and tearing down ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... testimony of the Scriptures. Many who were lacking in faith and experience, but who had considerable self-sufficiency, and who loved to hear and tell some new thing, were beguiled by the pretensions of the new teachers, and they joined the agents of Satan in their work of tearing down what God had moved Luther to build up. And the Wesleys, and others who blessed the world by their influence and their faith, encountered at every step the wiles of Satan in pushing overzealous, unbalanced, and unsanctified ones into fanaticism ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... dogs were all tearing down the field of young wheat next to ours. I never heard such a noise as they made. They did not bark, nor howl, nor whine, but kept on a "yo! yo, o, o! yo, o, o!" at the top of their voices. After them came a number of men on horseback, ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell

... we has all bin threttened with, from the Lord MARE on his throne of power to the umblest waiter of his royal estaberlishmunt. I herd ony last week from the Gildall Beedle, so it must be trew, that ever so many of what's called Comishunners of Suers had cum a tearing down stairs from their place up above, a cussin and a swearin like mad, becoz the Kumpany as was a jest beginnin for to lite up our streets with Lectrissity. had writtin for to say as they coodn't get it dun for more nor another year. Well that was bad enutf for them as likes ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various

... railroad, which, joining that to Brunn, shall bring it in connection with Vienna, will be finished this year; in anticipation of the increased business which will arise from this, speculators are building enormous hotels in the suburbs and tearing down the old buildings to give place to more splendid edifices. These operations, and the chain bridge which spans the Moldau towards the southern end of the city, are the only things which look modern—every thing else is ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... superb mountain panorama beyond. I never saw a view within miles of it for beauty and grandeur. Far down, a fussy English steamer came puffing and popping into the deep blue bay, and the 'Hansom's' cabs went tearing down to the landing place; and round me sat a crowd of grave brown men chanting 'Allah il Allah' to the most monotonous but musical air, and with the most perfect voices. The chant seemed to swell, and then fade, like ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... than a man for Madame Maintenon, or the barber who shaved him, or Monsieur Fagon, his surgeon? I wonder shall History ever pull off her periwig and cease to be court-ridden? Shall we see something of France and England besides Versailles and Windsor? I saw Queen Anne at the latter place tearing down the Park slopes, after her stag-hounds, and driving her one-horse chaise—a hot, red-faced woman, not in the least resembling that statue of her which turns its stone back upon St. Paul's, and faces the coaches struggling up Ludgate ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... effects, and endeavoured to escape by the lake to the main land; all the piraguas taking different directions, in order to distract the pursuit of the brigantines. At this time Sandoval was occupied in tearing down some houses, that he might clear his way towards the quarters of Guatimotzin, of whose flight he got immediate notice. He set out therefore immediately in pursuit, giving strict orders to all the captains of his brigantines to offer no injury or insult to the royal fugitive; but to keep a watchful ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... Lucille Carter. "The other man, the Mr. Wiggins, is Bonnie Connaught's cousin; and he told her about some young man who came out in the car with him, and asked for Miss Pond at the door, and then all of a sudden seemed to change his mind, and went tearing down the corridor after the maid, yelling, 'Hi, there! Hi, there!' at the top of his voice; but he couldn't catch her, and when Miss Pond came he pretended he had asked for some ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster

... exclaimed Helen, coming and taking her mother's thin hand and plunging it deep down among the sliding coins that were tearing down her strong apron with their weight, "'tis almost as much as I can carry! Tommy may go to school now, and you can have the Doctor and get well, and what can't we, what sha'n't we have! Margaret needn't teach any more,—we can have the house made over, we can keep a girl,—and ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... did stop at last, and went tearing down the aisle and out of the door, shaking the dust of the place from off his feet. The back row arose in a body, and went roaring after him, for Catchach in a rage was better than all the ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... a fence. At the first door at which we knocked (a shanty with an earthen mound heaped against the wall, two or three feet thick), the inmates were not up, though it was past eight o'clock. At last a middle-aged woman showed herself, half dressed, and completing her toilet. Threats were made of tearing down her house; for she is a lady of very indifferent morals, and sells rum. Few of these people are connected with the mill-dam,—or, at least, many are not so, but have intruded themselves into the vacant huts which were occupied by the mill-dam people last year. In ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the young cattle, and frightening the creatures so that they rushed about the field in great consternation; and finally, as he grew bolder and more frequent in his descents, the whole herd broke over the fence and came tearing down to the house "like mad." It did not seem to be an assault with intent to kill, but was perhaps a stratagem resorted to in order to separate the herd and expose the lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. When he occasionally ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... execution while I walked back through the city. A wide-eyed, panic-stricken poor devil with slobber on his jaws came tearing down-street with a mob at his heels. We stepped into an alley to let the race go by, but he doubled down the alley opposite. Before he had run twenty yards along it some one hit the back of his head with a piece ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... stronger cry against the Christianity of Christ than ever was attempted after the Franco-Prussian War. The "man of blood and iron," the man with the mailed fist and the iron heel, I much apprehend, will not be satisfied with tearing down the emblem of the physical Body of Christ, but to slake his bloodthirsty spirit he will want to go on to belabour His Mystical Body no ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... where the real cause of their visitor's departure appeared. A plane with engine wide open came tearing down through the clouds. It swung in a great spiral down over the field and dropped a white flare as it straightened away; then returned for the landing. It taxied at reckless speed toward the hangars and stopped a short distance from the men. The pilot threw himself out of the cockpit ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... occurred to him as to this hatred against him was that he had caused it by tearing down the pontifical decrees. He climbed into the pulpit, expecting to convert it into a seat of justice, and in the voice of a man who not only does not blame himself, but who is even ready to repeat ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... between salvation by education and salvation by dynamite; the difference between building up and tearing down, between Robespierre and ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... way they'd not work there a day,"—the old man replied hastily. "But it's different with me, an' you know it. My people take to it naturally. I am a po' white, an underling by breedin' an' birth, an' if my people build, they must build up. But you—you are tearing down when you do that. Po' as I am, I'd rather starve than to see little children worked to death in that trap, but Tabitha sees it different, and she is the one bein' in the world I don't cross—the General"—he smiled—"she don't ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... sled took me between the legs and I was histed back over the tongue and dropped in a heap behind before I knew what had happened to me. I thought a tornado had struck me. The girls couldn't stop though they thought I was killed, but Rob came tearing down and helped me up. He was awful scared but I wasn't killed nor my back wasn't broken but my nose bled something awful and kept on bleeding for three days. Not all the ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... up to me, among them M. Marie, M. Roger (of Loiret), M. de Remusat, and M. Chambolle. I related to them the incident of the tearing down of the flag, which was serious in view of the audacity of ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... at the first alarm, had leaped from his carriage, and, thrusting a rider from his mount, sprang into the saddle and came tearing down the line in a cloud of dust. He was bearing down on the scene at ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... not lose a single instant, and five minutes later I was tearing down the Morskaya in a drosky along the canal and across the Nicholas Bridge to ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... portfolio dropped from her lap; she was greatly startled, and instinctively put her hand to her side; still I thought I saw welcome dawning in her eyes; but at this moment Zillah sprang into my arms and half smothered me with kisses. Her cries of delight brought Reuben tearing down the stairs, and Mrs. Yocomb, hastening from the kitchen, left the mark of her floury arm on the collar of my coat as she gave me a motherly salute. Their welcome was so warm, spontaneous, and real that tears came into my eyes, for I felt that ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... had to be finished by a certain day, in order to make a certain steamer, to reach Heidelberg when promised. I got in a corner of a printing-office and read proof just as fast as it came off the press, while Carl worked at home, under you can guess what pressure, to complete his manuscript—tearing down with new batches for me to get in shape for the type-setter, and then racing home to do more writing. We finished the thesis about one o'clock one morning, proof-reading and all; and the next day—or ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... persecutor seemed to take in whirling them round and round, dodging about, and seeking them in the most unheard-of places, where they lay panting from very fright and fatigue. And then off he would start again, shaking the window-sashes as he passed, with wild, though impatient fury, remorselessly tearing down the large gilt signs which had from time immemorial rejoiced in the respective and respectable names of several worthies of our village, and then speeding away to the homes of said worthies, to proclaim ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... during the heaviest tropical rains. All of the rain that now falls over the whole surface of the earth and ocean, with the exception of a few desert areas, would then fall only on rather high mountains or steep isolated hills, tearing down their sides in huge torrents, cutting deep ravines, and rendering all growth of vegetation impossible. The mountains would therefore be so devastated as to be uninhabitable, and would be equally incapable of supporting either vegetable or ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... car and climbed in himself. He leisurely experimented with the gears, until Robin almost screamed in her anxiety. Then just as he started the motor, a shout hailed them from the office door, and both turned to see Adam Kraus tearing down the steps bareheaded, wildly waving his arms, followed by a half-dozen ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... by the company officers, and then the whole corps, with bayoneted rifles at the slope, advanced in brigade order across the huge fallow field in which they had been drawn up to within thirty yards or so of the road. In a few minutes a covered green automobile was seen tearing down the road at full speed, and as it drew up opposite the center of the corps the cheering began to spread all along the line. In the enthusiasm of the moment the majority did not notice that the car was not flying the royal standard, and even when an officer, with ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... turned out to be about to our waists; but for a little time the boat sped on as before. Planting our shoes firmly against the boulders of the bottom as we slid along, we finally gained the upper hand, and then it was an easy matter to reach the shore. Hardly had we done this when the Nell came tearing down in the same fashion. We rushed into the water as far as we dared, and they pulled with a will till they came to us, when they all jumped into the water and we tugged the boat ashore, just in time to plunge in again and help the Canonita in the same way. Dinner ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... chevaux de frise with his axe. "That's av ut, bhoys," yelled the Irish sergeant again. "Lave them spoikes an' go for the stockade. Good for you, little man—whirro!" Nat by this time was on a comrade's back, and using his axe for dear life; one of twenty men hacking, ripping, tearing down the wooden stakes. But it was Teddy who wriggled through first with Dave at his heels. The man beneath Nat gave a heave with his shoulders and shot him through his gap, a splinter tearing his cheek open. He fell head foremost sprawling down the ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... capillaries of the body the blood gives up to the tissues the material necessary for their growth and nourishment and at the same time receives from the tissues the waste products resulting from their metabolism, that is, the building up and tearing down of the tissues, and in so doing becomes changed from arterial or pure blood into venous or impure blood, which is collected by the veins and through them returned to the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... company with a new and better public playhouse on the Bankside, more conveniently situated than the Swan. The old Bear Garden was beginning to show signs of decay, and, doubtless, would soon have to be rebuilt. This suggested to Henslowe the idea of tearing down that ancient structure and erecting in its place a larger and handsomer building to serve both for the performance of plays and for the baiting of animals. To this plan Jacob Meade, Henslowe's partner in the ownership of the Bear ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... violently and riotously in some places since the beginning of the war, had been accelerated by recent Parliamentary enactments. Thus, in May 1643, just when Milton was preparing to leave London on his marriage holiday, there had been a tearing down, by authority, with the sound of trumpets and amid the huzzas of the citizens, of Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other such street-monuments of too Popish make. At the same time the anti- Sabbatarian "Book of Sports" had been publicly ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... It went tearing down the slope and did not stop until, battered and bleeding, it reached the sea. It stood on the narrow strand of beach for a moment, scooping great handfuls of water for its stricken eye. Then it ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger

... gathered force, and while the former raved and shrieked, down came the latter in a sheet, or rather in a succession of sheets which made the roadways seem as if full of dancing chess pawns, and the gullies turn at once into so many furious little torrents tearing down the ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... lowered down burnt for a few moments with a lurid flame, and was then extinguished; if, in a coal mine, when the unwary workman exposed a light, on a sudden the place was filled with flashing flames and thundering explosions, tearing down the rocks and destroying every living thing in the way, often, too, without leaving on the dead any marks of violence; what better explanation could be given of such catastrophes than to impute them to some supernatural agent? Nor was there any want, in those times, of well-authenticated ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... above the trees was sufficient guide, and his flying steps soon brought him to the encampment. Flinging open, indeed almost tearing down the flapping door of the tent, ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... Earth, and she, forgiving mother that she was, sheltered them in her breast. Only Tu, the god of mankind, stayed erect and undaunted. So it is that the winds and storms make war to this day upon men, wrecking their canoes, tearing down their houses and fences and ruining all their handiwork. Not only does man hold out against these attacks, but, in revenge for the cowardly desertion of Tu by his weaker brethren, men, his people, prey upon the fish and upon the plants that give food ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... blow upon the muzzle of the brute seeking daylight and vengeance upon its opponent. Each time as the bear upreared, the stout limb descended, but apparently with slight effect, and with each rush and tearing down of matted snow and twigs, the angle of ascent was lessening perceptibly. To say that Jack was exceedingly earnest and anxious would not be to exaggerate a particle. Furthermore, he was becoming warm and scant of breath. A portion of the breath which ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... he made his way down, the light snow flying before him. Rounding the rocks he could see down into the main canon; see the pony-soldiers and their Indian allies tearing down and burning the lodges. The yellow glare of many fires burned brightly in contrast with the cold blue of the snow. He scanned narrowly the place where his own lodge had been and saw it fall before many hands to be taken to their fires. With raised shoulders and staring eyes he stood aghast. ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... and the election day itself is positively exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess, tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary. True, it was on what she considered her own side, though I don't think she knew enough to distinguish between the two; still her real annoyance was occasioned more by the look of the thing. That a pupil of hers should ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren

... called war. Judging from the looks of the country and the burning villages, we were on the heels of a devastating army. For three, four, and five miles on either side of the road beautiful trees lay flat upon the ground. It was not until we saw groups of Belgian soldiers tearing down their own walls and hedges and applying match and gasolene to those which still stood, that we realized that this was a case of self-inflicted destruction. Farmhouses, stores, churches, old Belgian mansions, and windmills were either in flames ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... never allowed the girls to go out except very neatly dressed; but on this occasion they were seen tearing down the road with their garden hats on and minus their gloves. Had anyone from The Laurels observed them, good-by to Molly's liberty for many a long day. No one did, however. Linda during the critical ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... house and the city. Immediately the news was telegraphed, the vengeful Mexican mob had taken possession of the streets of Tampico and expressed its disapproval of the action of the United States by tearing down American flags and ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... the rifles. The raiders were caught in an ambuscade. The Emir fell, but was up again and waving. There was a splotch of blood upon his long white beard. He kept pointing and gesticulating, but his scattered followers could not understand what he wanted. Some of them came tearing down the pass, and some from behind were pushing to the front. A few dismounted and tried to climb up sword in hand to that deadly line of muzzles, but one by one they were hit, and came rolling from rock to rock to the bottom of the ravine. The shooting was not very ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... however, we halted at its farther end, and whilst I was still trying to pierce the gloom a great gust of air came tearing down it, and extinguished both ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... "twilight of the world" following the war perhaps will witness an Avatara—the coming of a World-Teacher who will rebuild on the one broad and ancient foundation that temple of Truth which the folly and ignorance of man is ever tearing down. A material counterpart of that temple will in that case afterward arise. Thus will be born the architecture of the future; and the ornament of that architecture will tell, in a new set of symbols, the story of ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... he exclaimed, clapping his hands, "yonder is a redness in the sky over the City. 'Tis the bailiff burning. It can be nothing else but that. Ah! my good people! here you are aiding me at last in tearing down the rights ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... ranks of the invaders into confusion, and caused a panic to seize the horses, many of which in their fright turned and trampled down the men behind. Rapidly the panic increased as the showers of missiles came tearing down, and soon the whole army was in a state of wild terror and confusion—a condition greatly assisted by the slippery nature of the ground. Then, with wild shouts, and brandishing their iron-studded clubs and their formidable ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... sight of John. She had turned the car round and left it with its nose pointing towards Ghent. Trixie Rankin and the McClane men were at the front cars taking out the stretchers; John and McClane were going up the road. She had got out her own stretcher and was following them when the battery came tearing down the road and cut them off. It tore headlong, swerving and careening with great rattling and crashing noises. She could see the faces of the men, thrown back, swaying; there was no terror in them, only a sort of sullen ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair

... arrival; it was a SALLE-A-MANGER, as appeared from the beaufet and the armoire vitree, filled with glass and china, which formed part of its furniture. Ere she had closed the door on me and herself, the corridor was already filled with day-pupils, tearing down their cloaks, bonnets, and cabas from the wooden pegs on which they were suspended; the shrill voice of a maitresse was heard at intervals vainly endeavouring to enforce some sort of order; vainly, I say: discipline there was none in these rough ranks, and yet this ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... of being swamped, as the canoe, being a small one, was often half-filled with water. We also had several close shaves from striking rocks and tree trunks. Ducks were plentiful, and I shot one on the wing as we were tearing down a rapid. The scenery was very fine; steep wooded mountains, rocky peaks with odd shapes, steep precipices, fine waterfalls, grand forests, and picturesque villages, and the scenery as we wound among ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker

... protect the meadows from one of "the three plagues of Provence." And even as the mistral tweaked our noses with a chilly thumb and finger, our eyes caught sight of the second and more dreaded plague: the deceitfully gentle-seeming Durance, which in its rage can come tearing down from the Alps with the roar of ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... a sentence[1] like ours for such an offense as ours, even in England. No woman ever got it over there even for tearing down buildings. And during all that agitation we were busy saying that never would such things happen in the United States. The men told us they ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... This brought some merriment in the camp. The idea that there lived a person who did not know how to cook clams! Without saying by your leave or anything else, the motherly looking native woman began tearing down our ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... crazy-pated, man-woman?" exclaimed the deacon, vehemently; "pray, don't mention her. The wrath of God will fall upon her and all the guilty brood who have desecrated His sanctuary, by tearing down its curtains and converting them into garments to serve Satan in." The excitable deacon was waxing warm, when his wife gave him a conjugal nudge, and he held ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... another—one a handsome building and the other of humbler appearance—had already been stripped of windows, doors, roofing, and rafters, and busy hands were now at work tearing down the walls. ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... she and Helen followed the plump girl behind the automobile, they were stricken dumb with amazement, if not with fear. Tearing down the field toward the row of automobiles was a big black bull—head down, strings of foam flying from his mouth, and with every other indication of ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... kept along the side of the road, scuffing along in the grass, thinking bitter thoughts about the arrogant youth who walked in the middle of the road. The honk, honk of a speeding automobile fell heedlessly upon the ears of both, till Martin looked back in sudden alarm. His startled eyes saw a car tearing down the road like a huge demon on wheels, its driver evidently trusting to the common sense of the man in the way to get out of the path of danger in time. But Lyman walked on in serene preoccupation, ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... of artillery and musketry, but in the dark they were unable to take aim, and but little damage was caused by their fire. The movement had the result intended—of occupying the whole attention of the eight hundred men in the fort, and of drowning any noise that might be made by those tearing down ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... hearty breakfast, we commenced our return journey to Geschenen; the driver, after leaving the tunnel and the snowdrifts, tearing down the defile at a most dangerous pace. At the station we took fresh tickets to Lugano, travelling third-class to make up for the extravagance of abandoning our former tickets, and then waited for the train which was to take us to Italy. Yes, to Italy, that wonderful country of which we had ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... young warriors saw him tearing down upon them, they said to each other: "We must not let him escape alive," and they attacked him from the right and from the left with sword and with lance. But the all-powerful Kokai was not to be easily beaten—he whirled his iron rod round like a great ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... his one hope of happiness was bound up, and waited, with those who were fighting stubbornly, heroically, against the end—its destruction beneath his own sword. He was fighting against himself. With his own hands he was tearing down that which seemed an inseparable, incorporate part of himself. Anger and contempt were dead. In their place the old love had rekindled and grown brighter before the sight of a courage, dignified and silent, which had held back the ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... are filled with pestilential dust which once was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sate upon thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies, conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples, flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on which they ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... looked in upon her Maude Glendower had ruled with a high hand. She could not live without excitement, and rallying from her grief at parting with her child, she plunged at once into repairs, tearing down and building up, while her husband looked on in dismay. When they were about it, she said, they might as well have all the modern improvements, and water, both hot and cold, was accordingly carried to all the sleeping apartments, the fountain-head being a large spring distant from the house ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... reached the farm I found Johnson and Anderson tearing down the old fence that was our eastern boundary. None of the posts were long enough for my purpose, so all ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... and down the Christiatick in huge gray automobiles. It was bitterly cold, and the waiting people grew restless. At last a feeble cheer started up the street and swept down the lines as a big car came tearing down the middle of the street. I caught a glimpse of an elderly woman ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... she could run. She never knew how impotent human fleetness is till she saw that lumbering coach go plunging swiftly and more swiftly away from her, across B Street, and tearing down the next hill with a speed that ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... describe the effect of the Rev. Mr. Strong's talk upon the audience. Once the applause was so long continued that it was a full minute before he could go on. When he finally closed with a tremendous appeal to the wealth of Milton to use its power for the good of the place, for the tearing down and remodeling of the tenements, for the solution of the problem of no work for thousands of desperate men, the audience rose to its feet ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon

... imperturbably. "Why do you suppose I came tearing down here to-night, leaving Kersley to kill all my patients as well as ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... two after, with two or three boys for audience, he shut up little Hughes in a corner of the play-ground, and greeted him with the nickname he knew to be so offensive, "Cad, Cad," until the boy's wrath was beyond bounds. Suddenly a step was heard tearing down the gravel-walk, and George, in his shirt sleeves, swept into the circle, and sent the tyrant staggering back with a blow in the chest, and then, with clinched fists, bravely confronted him. Bullies are invariably cowards, and Tom Hughes's persecutor, though three years older, much heavier, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... made me think of bears, and I had a hazy sort of an idea that I ought to jump up out of bed, but I lay still, listening for the report of a gun. I heard nothing, however, and soon fell a-dreaming again. Presently Johansen came tearing down into the saloon, crying out that a couple of bears were lying half or quite dead on the large ice hummock astern of the ship. He and Mogstad had shot at them, but they had no more cartridges left. Several of the men seized hold of their ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... trench several feet deep is dug in which to plant the timbers forming the sides. These are usually of driftwood, which is brought by the ocean currents from the Yukon. The ice breaks up first at the head of that great stream, and the debris dams up the river, which overflows its banks, tearing down trees, buildings and whatever borders its course as it breaks its way out to the sea. The wreckage is scattered along the coast for over a hundred miles, and the islands of Bering Sea get a small share. The islanders are constantly on the lookout for the drifting timber, ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes

... the Parlement of Paris was against them, and even after the king had granted them permission to settle in the country in 1553, the Parlement accused them of jeoparding the faith, destroying the peace of the church, supplanting the old orders and tearing down more than they built up. Nevertheless they won their way to a place of great power, until, sitting at the counsels of the monarch, they were able to crush their Catholic opponents, the Jansenists, as completely as their Protestant enemies were crushed ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... all under the lead of Hugo, that prince of Romanticists; their object being—revolt from conventional standards and a complete expression of their own personalities. Hugo, as he says in the famous preface to Cromwell, was tearing down the plaster which hides the facade of the fair temple of art; Dumas had just demolished Racine; Gericault and Delacroix, by their daring conceptions, were founding our modern school of painting. Into this maelstrom of revolution, Berlioz—he of the flaming locks, "that hairy Romantic" as Thackeray ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... trip we passed a large number of London busses loaded with wounded; they were all sitting-up cases and were a very happy looking lot. It was an odd sight to see bus after bus tearing down that long, straight road, with the tall trees on either hand, each bus with rows of soldiers seated on the upper deck, with heads and arms bandaged, looking about at everything with the greatest interest,—like tourists rather than men who had just come ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... on building a tiny fire to cook bacon, so we rustled some dry sticks and made a little one on a flat rock. I never in all my life tasted anything so good as that bacon and Hannah's sandwiches and some ice-cold water from a little creek that was tearing down ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... for it. We had to go to the inn across the road, glad enough to have a roof at all. The rain was tearing down as if the ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... when on the night of the dance information came to his ear that she had sold her pearls to lift the lien on Cap'n Sam Dreed's ship, with her own hands tearing down the libel from the mast and grinding ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... was decked off with palm, spruce, pine, myrtle, ivy and holly to garnish home, hall and shop in honor of Jesus, who had been crucified nearly sixteen hundred years before for telling the truth and tearing down the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... for his matchbox and struck a light. . . . The whole world was after him, hunting him down, tearing down the house above his head! . . . Well, he would go down with the house. Pamphlett, or Government, might take his house: but there was the old hiding-cupboard to the right of the ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... said, but they knew what she meant, and flew to obey her orders. In ten minutes, Mr. Bhaer and Silas were off to the wood, and Franz tearing down the road on old Andy to search the great pasture. Mrs. Jo caught up some food from the table, a little bottle of brandy from the medicine-closet, took a lantern, and bidding Jack and Emil come with her, and the rest not stir, she trotted away on Toby, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... the same thing) to fight and squabble over the administration thereof. A pretty Noise and Riot they made: now weeping and howling over the Corse; now bursting open Trunks, wrenching Trinkets from each other, striving to convey away Garments and Furniture, and even tearing down the hangings of Rich Stuff. Only the Harem, where my one True Wife was, remained inviolate from these Harpies; but me they overwhelmed with the most injurious Invectives and accosted by the foulest epithets, calling me Infidel, Pig, Giaour Dog, Frankish Thief, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... Tearing down the old abuses, Building up the purer laws, Scattering the dust of ages, Searching out ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... an hour later when two riders came tearing down the hill. She recognized Jim as the foremost of the two, and ran to meet him. He came thundering down upon her, leaned over, grasped her arms and hauled her up before him. The mount turned, reared high on its ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... MFunya MPopo, soon to be a temple and sanctuary, sat Kawa Kendi beside the New Fire tended by Kingata Mata, facing Zalu Zako, MYalu and the lay chiefs, while upon his own hill slaves were tearing down his old hut, erecting a temporary palisade around the quarters of his wives who were forever forbidden to him, and beginning the building of the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... who entered politics, and went about England tearing down churches. He also assisted in putting King Charles I. out of his pleasure. Ran things in England on a reform-Cromwell basis, and after his death was honored by having his round head placed as a decoration over ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous

... see the spirits of the departed wandering over their graves. In fact, it was at all times only the sensitive who could see the imponderable emanations from the chemical change going on in corpses, luminous in the dark. And thus I have, I trust, succeeded in tearing down one of the densest veils of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... there was a furious barking, and a dog seemed to be tearing down the garden toward ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... night a councillor of the Parliament was surprised on horseback in the streets tearing down and disfiguring the decree of the Regency Council, which abrogated that of the Parliament. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... earth had opened to let an avenging fire consume all that trash. I was smoking my pipe quietly by my dismantled steamer, and saw them all cutting capers in the light, with their arms lifted high, when the stout man with moustaches came tearing down to the river, a tin pail in his hand, assured me that everybody was 'behaving splendidly, splendidly,' dipped about a quart of water and tore back again. I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... shadow of the buildings. The turning proved fatal—it was a blind court, and ended in a small paved square, hemmed in on all sides by the best class houses. Seeing the mistake he had made, George paused for a moment to glance round. The mob were tearing down the court, their cries filling the air and making the calm ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld



Words linked to "Tearing down" :   devastation, leveling, destruction



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