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Collapse   /kəlˈæps/   Listen
Collapse

noun
1.
An abrupt failure of function or complete physical exhaustion.  Synonym: prostration.
2.
A natural event caused by something suddenly falling down or caving in.  "The collapse of the old star under its own gravity"
3.
The act of throwing yourself down.  Synonym: flop.
4.
A sudden large decline of business or the prices of stocks (especially one that causes additional failures).  Synonym: crash.



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"Collapse" Quotes from Famous Books



... to blow the mountain up!" King advised her. "If somebody fired a pistol in here, the least would be the collapse of this floor into the tunnel below with a hundred thousand tons of rock on top of it. There ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... times appeared cruel, unreasonably so. All the old ever-to-be-repeated cycle of bitter human thoughts had to be gone all through again in my own individual atom. Here and there the bitterness might vary: as, for instance, the collapse and corruption of the body with its hideous finale never caused me distress. I had become too indifferent to the body; but I found that most persons clung to it with extraordinary tenacity, indeed appeared to regard it ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley

... GDP originates in the public sector, most industrial plants being owned by the government. Overregulation holds back technical modernization and foreign investment. Even so, the economy grew rapidly during the late 1970s and early 1980s, but in 1986 the collapse of world oil prices and an increasingly heavy burden of debt servicing led Egypt to begin negotiations with the IMF for balance-of-payments support. Egypt's first IMF standby arrangement, concluded in mid-1987, was suspended in early 1988 because of the government's failure to adopt ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... considered dangerous; an accident should never happen except it be due to the action of others. People, carts, cattle, and dogs on the road are liable to such unexpected movements, that the real danger of the cyclist comes from the outside; to danger from absolute collapse, due to a hidden flaw in the materials employed, every one is liable, but, the bicyclist more remotely than the tricyclist, owing to the greater simplicity of his machine. The bicyclist, though he has further to fall in case of an accident from any of these causes, is in a better position than ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... of laughter so loud that hardly a man knew that the band was now playing in full force "God save the Queen," with an additional obbligato from the drums—that one known as the "big" threatening collapse from the vigorous action of the ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... are very bad; there is general mis-government and starvation. It is not known who is obtaining the upper hand, but the hope that the Bolshevik Government would collapse had not been realized. In fact, there is one report that the Bolsheviki are stronger than ever, that their internal position is strong, and that their hold on the people is stronger. Take, for instance, the case of the Ukraine. Some adventurer raises a few men and overthrows ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt

... she had saved him. Alas! it was the last benefit she was ever to confer on her old pupil. At the door he was told by a weeping, terrified maid that she was very ill with cholera, and that no hope was given. He tried to send up a message, but she was in a state of collapse and insensible; and when he inquired the next morning, the gentle spirit had ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... merely a question as to whether or not the master had so gaged his strength that the bay would not collapse before even the summit of the range had been reached. As the miles went by the horse loosened and extended finely to his work; sweat darkened and polished his flanks; flecks of foam whirled back and spattered his ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... Overview: The swift collapse of the Yugoslav federation has been followed by bloody ethnic warfare, the destabilization of republic boundaries, and the breakup of important interrepublic trade flows. The situation in Serbia and Montenegro remains fluid in view of the extensive political ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Miss Marshall," and he spoke more seriously, "pardon my giving you advice, but you have had a hard morning and you will feel better, later on, for a little food. As for me, I have had nothing since yesterday, and shall collapse without it. Suppose I go to the house and scrape up some sort of a lunch. Won't you come there in ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... dangers also, notably of the collapse of the whole roof where the rock was rotten, as we found it to be in places. Then it proved very hard to deal with the water, for once or twice we struck small springs impregnated with copper or some other mineral that blistered ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... had counselled the Emperor to remain in Peking and face the barbarians; she is further believed to have urged the execution of Parkes and Loch, the order luckily arriving too late to be carried out. For the next three years the Regents looked anxiously for the final collapse of the T'ai-p'ings, having meanwhile to put up with the hateful presence of foreign diplomats, now firmly established within the Manchu section of the city of Peking. No sooner was the great rebellion entirely suppressed (1864), than another rising broke out. The Nien-fei, or Twist ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... of despair. The delivery of Hermione's defensive speeches was profoundly earnest and touching. The simple cry of the mother's breaking heart, and the action of veiling her face and falling like one dead, upon the announcement of the prince's death, were perfect denotements of the collapse of a grief-stricken woman. The skill with which the actress, in the monument scene—which is all repose and no movement—contrived nevertheless to invest Hermione with steady vitality of action, and to imbue the crisis with a feverish air of suspense, was in a high degree significant ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... of man—in all things of growth and decline assimilating—has not our world reached the top of the acclivity, and pausing for a moment may it not be about to take the downward course into another abyss of collapse and oblivion? ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... lit with horror as she swayed upon her feet. For a moment she seemed about to collapse. Then she groped her way towards the door and stood there, clinging to the handle. Slowly she looked around over her shoulder, her face as white as death. She moistened her lips with her tongue, her eyes glared at him. Behind, her brain ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... moment Katherine's consciousness reeled. The roar of the ocean which girds our life round was in her ears, the feeling of chill and collapse at her heart. But with a supreme will she took possession of herself. "Weak I will not be. All I will know. All I will suffer." And with these thoughts she went back to the room, and took her place ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... white helmet, drinking chocolate on a terrace, with a guide-book in one fist, a ticket to visit monuments in the other. I heard Scottish soldiers playing, "I'll be in Scotland before ye!" and something within me, a lurking hope, I suppose, seemed to founder and collapse—but only for a moment. It was after four in the afternoon. Soon day would be declining. And I seemed to remember that the decline of day in Egypt had moved me long ago—moved me as few, rare things have ever done. Within half an ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... outer iris—film of love, The fleeting shade of an eternal thing. Beauty—the cloudy mock of Tantalus; Daughter of Time, betrothed unto Death, Who, all so soon as the lank anarch old Fingers her palm, and lips her for his bride, Suffers collapse, and straightway doth become A hideous comment of mortality. Know this, my lord, while thou dost run from me, The tide of true love hath its hours of ebb, If the attendant orb withdraw his light; And though there ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... existence of certain human faculties, because they don't happen to possess them themselves. I think I know a Rishi who can produce experiences which would scatter all their conclusions to the winds, when the whole system which is built upon them would collapse. ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant

... the tariff existing when South Carolina seceded in 1860 had been carried by votes from South Carolina. The absurd Morrill tariff could not have caused secession, for it was passed, without a struggle, in the collapse ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... up with reams of Erie stock at high costs, and the load was a severe strain on him. He dared not sell for fear of causing a financial collapse. Drew had taken away about seven million dollars of his money and an artificial stringency had been created in Wall Street by this exodus of most of its available cash. But Vanderbilt weathered the storm and, as his generally optimistic ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody

... City was founded in 1864 at the collapse of the Squaw Valley mining excitement, the story of which is fully related in another chapter. Practically all its first inhabitants were from the deserted town of Knoxville. They saw that the lumbering industry was active and its permanence fully ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... the signal and the event of the day was on. First to collapse was Charlie Anderson. Jimmie was then in the lead with Len Fogarty a close second, and Cecelia Anne beside him. So they went for a lap. Then Jimmie, missing perhaps the blue little figure of his pacemaker, wavered a little, only a little, but enough ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... explain it to me. I'm an old man, and I may not live to see my world collapse. I ...
— Suite Mentale • Gordon Randall Garrett

... reported for football practice with a comforting knowledge of duties performed. An hour and a half of steady practice, consisting of passing, falling, and catching punts, left the inexperienced candidates in a state of breathless collapse when Blair dismissed the field. West did not turn up at the gridiron, but a tiny scarlet speck far off on the golf links ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the bodies are woolly or blurred; in the early stage there may be clear areas corresponding to cheesy foci. In progressive cases the bodies may be altered in shape and in size, and from destruction and collapse of the bones there is altered spacing, both of the bodies and of the ribs. In the interpretation of skiagrams, help is often obtained from an alteration in the axis of bodies, an angular deviation often drawing attention ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... threw his arm round the man's waist. They wrestled backwards and forwards, but the soldier was a powerful man, and Hector found that he could not long retain a grasp of his wrist. Suddenly he felt his antagonist collapse; the dagger dropped from his hand, the other arm relaxed its hold, and he ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... ran low, that their shovels bore down into the precious pocket. The earth flew. They worked like madmen, with nervous energy and power of will; and when the chest finally came into sight, rotten with age and the soak of earth, they fell back against a tree, on the verge of collapse. The hair was damp on their foreheads, their breath came ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... know you have promised to be his wife. If you denied it you would lie." He sat for a moment enjoying the girl's discomfort. Then he went on, with a cruel smile about his lips as she returned to her seat with a movement that was almost a collapse. "That's better," he said, following her action by means of his wonderful instinct. "Now let us ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... upon an account of his visit to Richmond and the glorious successes of the Union army; "throwing himself," as Mr. Carpenter says, "in his almost boyish exultation, at full length across the bed, supporting his head upon one hand, and in this manner reciting the story of the collapse of the Rebellion. Concluding, he lifted himself up and said, 'And now for ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... him the bottle without comment. I could see my erstwhile tow sitting upon the bed, slumped in an attitude of collapse. He looked so abject; his condition might have touched a harder heart than mine. But there was no softening of Newman's heart, to judge from his face; the little mirthless smile had vanished and his features were hard and set. Aye, and his manner ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... to Newcastle with despatches to the governor, in which he alluded to his sanguine anticipations at the time he had sent in his last report, and their almost immediate collapse. But the discovery of Liverpool Plains compensated in some degree for the disappointment caused by the renewed failure that had attended Oxley's efforts to trace ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... later domes except the large oval dome on the central church of the Pantokrator which is almost of the same size. It is therefore now difficult to say what was the precise form of the original domes. Most probably they were polygonal drum-domes, and their collapse owing to their size may well have led to the small drum-domes of later times. Though not strictly Byzantine these Turkish domes are of interest as showing the development of Byzantine forms under Turkish rule, and that reversion to ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... grand collapse several times. His books were read by thousands of superstitious people. Finally, he was played out, and he went to his grave a discredited prophet. Had he been wiser he would have fixed the event some time after he was likely to be buried. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... announcing one of these very works. An even shorter period covers the latest Italian renaissance of music, the feverish excitement into which the public was thrown by one of its most blatant productions, and the collapse of a set of composers who were at one time hailed as ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... to me to be on the eve of a collapse. His lips moved, and he mumbled something, but the words were wholly unintelligible. Ray turned to ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... period there was considerable activity in East Prussia, and the Courland coast was bombarded by the German Baltic squadron. There was every indication that Austria was near collapse, but all the time the Germans were preparing for a mighty effort, and the secret was kept with extraordinary success. The little conflicts in the Carpathians and in East Prussia were meant to deceive, ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... your mattress, fall asleep. On one of these occasions you find unexpectedly that the velvet-gray night has become steel-gray dawn, and that the kindly old quartermaster is bending over you. Sleepily, very sleepily, you stagger to your feet and collapse into the nearest chair. Then to the swish of water, as the sailors sluice the decks all around and under you, you fall into a really ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... expand; or if before a sufficient crust is formed to retain the air and form a framework of support for the dough, the heat is lessened or withdrawn, the air will escape, or contract to its former volume, allowing the distended glutinous cell walls to collapse; in either case the bread will ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... Tubby assured him. "Only I do hope we manage to strike a dinner-call somehow or other. I can do without a bed, but I must have eats or I'll collapse utterly, like a balloon with ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... quarter-deck, uttering lamentations over collapse of the Eastbourne stand against the Salvationists. Bill amending Eastbourne Improvement Act up for Third Reading. JEREMIAH had proposed to introduce Clause enabling inhabitants of town to protect themselves ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various

... crawled out into the brilliant sunshine some part of his courage came back to him. Though lame in every muscle, he was not ill. That was the surprising thing. His head was clear, and his breath full and deep. "My lungs are all right," he said to himself. "I'm not going to collapse." And he looked round him with a new-born admiration of the wooded hills which rose in somber majesty on either side the roaring stream. "How different it all looks this morning," he said, remembering the deep ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... graphite industry during the war, and its subsequent collapse, have resulted in agitation for a duty ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... The collapse of German philosophy always occurs at the beginning rather than the end of an argument, and the difficulty here is that there is no way of testing which is a master race except by asking which is your own race. If you cannot find out, (as is usually the case,) ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... toiling wretches. There is that sort of brutal strength in it, that it may endure for many long ages, until it comes into collision with some higher civilization. Then it is likely to end in sudden collapse, because the fighting quality of the people has been destroyed. Populations that have lived for centuries in fear of impalement or crucifixion, and have known no other destination for the products of their labour than the clutches of the omnipresent tax-gatherer, are not likely ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... friend, you may as well collapse. You are not sufficiently comprehensive to embrace me. I am myself no tyro at smiling, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... said to me this morning with bitter irony, to other interests more congenial to me. Alas! if I could really devote myself to these interests, if I could at last conquer my inertia.... But no! I shall remain to the end the incomplete creature I have always been.... The first obstacle, ... and I collapse entirely; what has passed with you has shown me that If I had but sacrificed my love to my future work, to my vocation; but I simply was afraid of the responsibility that had fallen upon me, and therefore I am, truly, unworthy of ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... woman of this country who has caused so much hearty laughter by this enviable gift. She can compress a word-picture or character-sketch into a few lines, as when she said of the early Yankee: "No matter how large a man he was, he had a look of shrinking and collapse about him. It looked as if the Lord had made him and then pinched him." And a woman who has done such good work in poetry, juvenile literature, journalism, on the platform, and in books of travel and biography, will not soon be forgotten. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... epoch-making in the game of tennis, combining as it did the greatest number of Davis Cup matches that have ever been held in one year, the invasion of France and England by an American team, the first appearance in America of Mlle. Suzanne Lenglen and her unfortunate collapse, and finally the rise to prominence of Japan as a leading factor in the tennis world that I have incorporated a record of the season's outstanding features and some sidelights and personality sketches on the new stars in the new addition ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... that he must needs go on until he is beaten and all his training is made futile. Nor again do I praise the gambler who, if he makes one good stroke of luck, insists on doubling the stakes. Such conduct in the majority of cases must end in absolute collapse. Let us lay the lesson of these to heart, and forbear to enter into any such lists as theirs for life or death; but, while we are yet in the heyday of our strength and fortune, shake hands in mutual amity. So assuredly shall we through you and you through us attain to an unprecedented ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... they're trying to break down our nerve so that we'll fail through sheer collapse," replied the president of the S.B. & L., rubbing his hands nervously. "Reade, why should there be such ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... since His Essence is His existence; whereas every creature has being by participation, so that its essence is not its existence. Therefore, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. iv, 12): "If the ruling power of God were withdrawn from His creatures, their nature would at once cease, and all nature would collapse." In the same work (Gen. ad lit. viii, 12) he says: "As the air becomes light by the presence of the sun, so is man enlightened by the presence of God, and in His absence ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... for dinner, Clarence proceeded to the library, where he found his mother in hysterics and his father in a state of collapse on the sofa. Clarence was too well-bred to make any comment. A true Runnymede, he affected to notice nothing, and, picking up the evening paper, began to read. The announcement of his engagement could be postponed to a more ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... in his efforts to restore to consciousness his unexpected visitor. He rebuilt the fire, heated some water upon his spirit lamp, and forced some hot drink between the lips of the woman who was now almost in a state of collapse. Then he wrapped her round in his own ulster and drew her closer to the fire. He tried during those few moments to put away the memory of all that she had told him. Gradually she began to recover. She opened her eyes and drew a little sigh. She made ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... existed before. The prolonged tension of mind and effort during four years of overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which, as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources of the government. Only the ravages of time could deprive us of the hundreds of thousands ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... new-comers were stacking their arms at the "indaba" house at the end of the square, and the village people were talking, laughing, and eating. Muata reached the ground, but not in a state of collapse, for the next instant the two watchers saw him crawl to the shadow of a hut, where he remained as ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... decently flowered china. Beside the window looking out upon a gray-brick wall almost within reach, a canary with a white-fluted curtain about the cage dozed headless. Beside that window, covered in flowered chintz, a sewing-machine that could collapse to a table; a golden-oak sideboard laid out in pressed glassware. A homely simplicity here saved by chance or chintz from the ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... was never opposed to any great general. With Belisarius it would certainly seem that he never actually crossed swords; but Justinian and Maurice (afterwards emperor), to whom he was opposed in his later years, were no contemptible antagonists. It may further be remarked that the collapse of Persia in her struggle with Rome as soon as Chosroes was in his grave is a tolerably decisive indication that she owed her long career of victory under his guidance to his possession of uncommon ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... not a trace of his misfortune to be read in his face. But Decker, the victor, moved away like a man oppressed, pale, staggering, half-fainting, as though the nervous strain had brought him to the edge of collapse. ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... they did for man and for human dignity eclipsed what they had designed for Germany. After them there was a long interlunar period of darkness for the land of the Rhine and the Danube. The German energy, too spasmodically excited, suffered a collapse. Throughout the whole of the seventeenth century, but one vigorous mind arose for permanent effects in literature. This was Opitz, a poet who deserves even yet to be read with attention, but who is no more worthy to be ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... for then, as you eat your way down, the obliging covers shrink to meet the vacuum. If more than one kori be necessary, an easy step in devices leads to a series of graded sizes. Then all your baskets eventually collapse into one. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... the doctrine of opposition requires to be amended in one or other of two ways. Either we must face the consequences which follow from regarding I and O as indefinite, and lay down that sub-contraries may both be false, accepting the awkward corollary of the collapse of the doctrine of contradiction; or we must be consistent with ourselves in regarding I and O, for the particular purposes of opposition, as being strictly particular, and lay down that it is always possible to argue from the truth ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... was electric in its effect, sending a thrill through nerve and muscle, though the brain remained still drowsily inert, while the natural instinct of desire for life chased away the helpless state of collapse; and Mark Heath, old athlete, expert swimmer, man hardened by his life in the southern colony, rose to the surface, and struck out, swimming slowly and mechanically, as if it were the natural action of his ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... of mankind toward such changes in the direction of the Social impulse as can be made without impairing the force of the evolutionary movement, rather than to those which involve the reversal of the direction of the force with the resulting danger of explosion and collapse. ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams

... excitement and fatigue he had lately been called upon to endure. At any rate, it appears fairly certain that the Elder Pliny did not perish, as is still sometimes asserted, by the direct effects of the eruption, but rather through an ordinary collapse of nature—syncope, perhaps. Three days later his body was found lying not far from Stabiae by his grief-stricken nephew, who describes his uncle's corpse as looking "more like that of a sleeping than of a ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... belief that this unhappy result was produced by the drug. It is worth remembering that asthmatic cases bear the administration of antitoxin very poorly; a marked and sometimes serious embarrassment of respiration, with cyanosis, unconsciousness, and general collapse may follow its use, but recovery ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... blocked the Thames, and put a stop to the river trade of London. Their demands were more extensive than those of the Spithead Mutineers, but government firmly refused further concessions, and in June the want of union and resolution among the men brought about the collapse of the mutiny. Ship after ship deserted the red flag, until the last vessel was steered into Sheerness harbour, and given up to the authorities. Several of the leaders were tried by court-martial and hanged ; the rest of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... back, stick his spurs in its sides, and, using the flat of his long knife as a whip, pretend to be riding a race, yelling with fiendish glee. The bellowing would subside into deep, awful, sob-like sounds and chokings; then the rider, seeing the animal about to collapse, would fling himself nimbly off. The beast down, they would all run to it, and throwing themselves on its quivering side as on a couch, begin making ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... Ainslie remained without to give a necessary warning. Whereupon Ainslie was seized with fright, and Brodie, losing his head, called off the others, so that six hundred pounds were left, that might have been an easy prey. Smith, indignant at the collapse of the long-pondered design, laid the blame upon his master, and they swung, as Brodie's grim spirit of farce suggested, for four ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... her good behaviour, an attitude which was admirably reflected in 1900 when her Peking Expeditionary Force proved itself so well- behaved and so gallant as to arouse the world's admiration. But the war with Russia and the collapse of the Tsar's Manchurian adventure not only drew her back into territory that she never hoped to see again, but placed her in possession of a ready-made railway system which carried her almost up to the Sungari river ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... likewise, exercise the same astonishing method of resenting any liberties taken with their persons, by suddenly and unexpectedly ejecting their teeth, their stomach, their digestive apparatus—in fact all their insides, so to speak—in the face of the intruder, reducing themselves to a state of collapse, and making of themselves mere empty bags, until such time as their wonderful recuperative powers enable them to replace the organs so summarily disposed of; for, wonderful as it may seem, teeth, stomach, digestive organs, and all soon grow again. Moreover, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... give point to her words, a rifle suddenly barked its hoarse note, close outside. Garth sprang to the loophole in Natalie's room; and was in time to see the poor, stupid, faithful old horse, tethered outside, sink to his knees, and collapse on ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... The collapse of the bridge at the close of the Glacial Epoch left the Atlantic abyss effectually dividing the two hemispheres. Its islands, few and far between, were helpless to maintain intercourse between the opposite shores; this is proven by the fact ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... to be more or less in a state of collapse! The bal masque is over, the guests have departed, and all that is left to us now are the recollections of a delightful party that gave full return for our efforts to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... all happened while Rex was crossing the room. Suddenly, as the doctor watched him, his eyes fixed themselves. In the next instant, he thought, their light would break; and the body he supported would collapse and fall back for ever. It was the last gasp. Then a ringing voice broke the silence, just as Rex had his hand upon the latch. 'I will, I tell ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... from me even when our prospects were gloomiest. We were sadly scourged by the cholera, and it was almost appalling to me to find that out of twenty-seven officers present, I could only muster fifteen for the operations of the attack. However, it was done, and after it was done came the collapse. Don't be horrified when I tell you that for the whole of the actual siege, and in truth for some little time before, I almost lived on brandy. Appetite for food I had none, but I forced myself to eat just sufficient to ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... Netherby (the clerk) saw what had happened he at once called for Marshland, who was sitting in the parlour in a state of utter collapse. On hearing that her precious Miss Helen had fainted, the good old woman ran at once ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... languishing state, miserable beyond description. We county people had simply viewed ourselves as the injured parties by this importation, bemoaned the ugliness of the erections, were furious at the interruptions to our country walks, prophesied the total collapse of the Company, and never suspected that we had any duties towards the potters. The works were lingering on, only just not perishing; the wages that the men did get, such as they were, went in drink; the town in that quarter was really unsafe in the evening; ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and brought the whiplash whistling down upon the broad shoulders. There was a strange guttural sound, and the figure before him seemed to collapse and sink, a dead weight, down into the encircling rope. Rankin's arm was arrested ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... he declared. "A few months ago there was real danger, one is forced to believe, of a European war. To-day the crisis is passed, yet the money-markets which bore up so well through the critical period seem now all the time on the point of collapse. It is hard for a banker to know how to operate these days. I wish you gentlemen in Downing Street, Mr. Simpson, would make it easier ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the disappearance of her daughter had affected her, Mrs. Blackwell was facing it bravely. That was her nature. One could imagine that only when Betty was actually found would this plucky little woman collapse. Instinctively, one felt that she claimed his assistance in the unequal fight she was waging against the complexities of modern life for which she had ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... Nigel leading the way. Lord Dorminster was lying very much as Brookes had described him, but there was something altogether unnatural in the collapse of his head and shoulders and his motionless body. Nigel spoke to him, touched him gently, raised him at last into a sitting position. Something on which his right hand seemed to have been resting ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... it said to his credit, was no party to these reckless accusations. Mortified as he was beyond description, and disappointed by the collapse of his ambition, he yet scouted the idea of any one of his five rivals being guilty of so dirty a trick as the cutting of his boat's rudder-line. At the same time he was as convinced as any one that foul play had been at the bottom of the accident, and the perpetrator of the mean act was undoubtedly ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... few people in this country who, when the collapse of the Axis begins, will tell our people that we are safe once more; that we can tell the rest of the world to "stew in its own juice"; that never again will we help to pull "the other fellow's chestnuts from the fire"; that the future of civilization can jolly well ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... exhausted, absolutely overcome with fatigue since I had moved; as if to sit on that Pompeiian chair had been a task almost beyond human strength, a sort of labour that must end in collapse. I fought against it for a moment and then my resistance gave way. Not all at once but as if yielding to an irresistible pressure (for I was not conscious of any irresistible attraction) I found ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... which it delivers, and physical disease which it heals. So, in the Gospels, for instance, you find 'Thy faith hath made thee whole'—literally, 'saved thee' And you hear one of the Apostles crying, in an excess of terror and collapse of faith, 'Save! Master! we perish!' The two notions that are conveyed in our familiar expression 'safe and sound,' both lie in the word—deliverance from danger, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... you were, and though I hated to 'butt in' on your performance, I just felt I had to, to save you from collapse." ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... type have led their classes through college and won success afterwards. Probably they would have done still better if entirely free from the habit. On the other hand, men and women of neurotic inheritance combined with the habit have suffered nervous collapse during college years; and it is scientific to assume that the additional nervous strain produced by masturbation was a contributing factor. Evidently, we dare make no definite prophecy as to what will happen to one who in early life forms the habit ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... year 1797 was one of the most eventful in the whole history of this long and bloody war. A dark cloud seemed hanging over our native land, which at any moment might burst into a storm that would end in our utter collapse, if not destruction. And the shadow of this cloud was in every heart. Nor is this to be wondered at. The people were positively an-hungered, the children were crying for bread. Far away in the north, the crops ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... the Parliament and the king, and in 1546 it was regarded as Charles's last hope in Somerset. Its resistance was stout; for 160 days Colonel Wyndham baffled the assaults of no less an adversary than Blake, and only surrendered on the total collapse of the Royal cause (p. 17). The grounds are entered under a gateway (Perp.), built by Sir H. Luttrell. The oldest part of the castle lies to the R. of this, flanked by two round towers (13th cent.), built by Reginald Mohun. (Note door and huge knocker, replacing original portcullis: another similar ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... the remainder of the crew in hopeless confusion, and he himself was rescued with difficulty in a half-drowned state of collapse by the Umpire's boat. Yet for some occult reason no feat of gallantry in action would have won him such universal commendation on the Lower-deck. "Nobby Clark—'im as jumped overboard in the Bandsmen's Race" was thereafter his designation among ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... saved from going to the dogs; and I should be very sorry to see the school go down. I went there when I was a lad, and have always been proud of Torrington's, and that is why I am anxious to save it from collapse.' ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie

... chequered experience. After the collapse of the Halifax and Quebec project, her efforts were confined {68} to the road running north from St Andrews and to the European ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... and is in Him. In this Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can fall out of Himself into something below infinitude. Man's real ego, or selfhood, is goodness. If man's individuality were evil, he would be annihilated, for evil ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy

... pains, she had not yet done Aldous any harm that counted. During all the time of their East End sojourn, a Liberal government, embarrassed by large schemes it had not force enough to carry, was sinking towards inevitable collapse. When the crash came, a weak Conservative government, in which Aldous Maxwell occupied a prominent post, accepted office for a time without a dissolution. They came in on a cry of "industrial reform," and, by way of testing their own party and the country, adopted the Factory Bill for East London, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... companionship rather than sought it, worked as he walked, and was marked down as a 'pot-hunter.' He 'worked while he ate, he cut down his sleep, and for him the penalty came, not in a palpable, definable illness, but in an abrupt, incongruous reaction and collapse.' With rage he looked back on these insensate years of study which had weakened him just when he should have been ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... Western Isles and Argyle. And in his independent stand at this important period in the history of Scotland will be found the true grounds of the local rancour which afterwards prevailed between Mackenzie and the Island Lord, and which only terminated in the collapse of the Earls of Ross and the Lords of the Isles, upon the ruins of which, as a reward for proved loyalty to the reigning monarch, and as the result of the characteristic prudence of the race of MacKenneth, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... moment that trampling steps were heard, making Felix spring forward with an instinct to silence them; but the threshold the sight of his face brought conviction to Edgar, and with a loud uncontrollable cry, tired and hungry as he was, he seemed to collapse into his brother's arms, and ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and that it is to May, and not December, that we are to look forward. Even in our finances, which are confessedly our weakest point, we doubt if the experience of any other nation will enable us to form a true conception of our future. We shall have, beyond question, the ordinary collapse of speculation that follows a sudden expansion of paper currency. We shall have that shivering and expectant period when the sails flap and the ship trembles ere it takes the wind on the new tack. But it is no idle boast to say that there never was a country ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... This test, however, not satisfying the chiefs, they insisted on Rumanika going through another trial. He was seated on the ground, and it was believed that if he was the appointed king, the portion of soil on which he sat would rise up in the air, but if not, it would collapse, and he would be dashed to pieces. According to the belief of his subjects, no sooner had Rumanika taken his seat, than he was raised into the sky, and ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... Empire, of its fiscal administration. The peace of Europe, however, is apparently less menaced by the danger of a foreign conquest of Turkey than by the extreme weakness of this empire, and its threatened collapse within itself. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... at ease with a single companion. My self-consciousness was something more painful to me than I can convey in words. At home I wept in my room and cursed myself for a baby. I little realized the cause of my nervous collapse. Yet I had too robust a frame not to be able to sleep and to play hard. The sympathetic pleasure which I had found in swinging my girl-cousin to and fro I now doubled by letting a 7-year-old boy ride cock-horse on my feet. I experienced an erection during ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... wizened old black man with perfectly white hair—came running from the kitchen in a state of near-collapse, the sweat streaming off him and ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... the corpse; and after the first sensations of awe had departed from me, I ventured to look upon it with a purpose of discovering in its features the lineaments of guilt. Owing to the nature of his death, that collapse which causes the flesh to shrink almost immediately after the spirit has departed was not visible here. The face was rather full and livid, but the expression was not such as penitence or a conviction of crime could be supposed to have left ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... pulled himself together, and went to his wife. He found her in a state of collapse on the hearth-rug, and lifted her up gently. He had no intention of telling her of Barnby's mistake, or of uttering words of comfort. In the thousand and one recollections that surged through his brain touching his boy, words ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... same situation. Habit, behind which force of circumstances is concealed, makes him conform. At length the hour arrives. He observes the darting puffs of smoke in the distance. He listens to the sounds that are in the air. Perhaps he hears something strike with a thud and sees a soldier near him collapse like a shot pheasant. He realises that it may be his turn next. Fear grips ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill



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