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Wreck   /rɛk/   Listen
Wreck

noun
1.
Something or someone that has suffered ruin or dilapidation.  "Thanks to that quack I am a human wreck"
2.
An accident that destroys a ship at sea.  Synonym: shipwreck.
3.
A serious accident (usually involving one or more vehicles).  Synonym: crash.
4.
A ship that has been destroyed at sea.



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"Wreck" Quotes from Famous Books



... was all this, my dear Toby, to the injuries done us by my child's coming head foremost into the world, when all I wished, in this general wreck of his frame, was to have saved this little casket ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... touched him keenly; this was the Empire in a different aspect from any that he yet knew; the opportunism of his father and of Monsieur de Mauves, the bare worldliness of the Sainfoys, the military brutality of Ratoneau. The voice of this poor soldier, wandering back, a helpless, destitute wreck, to end his days in his old home, sounded like the bugle-call of all that generous self-sacrifice, that pure enthusiasm for glory, which rose to follow Napoleon and made his career possible. Angelot felt as if he too ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... There was a large public room, in imitation of the more celebrated English watering-places, where the more respectable portion of the company met and became acquainted, and where, also, balls and dinners were occasionally held. Not a wreck of this edifice is now standing, although, down to the days of Swift and Delany, it possessed considerable celebrity, as is evident from the ingenious verses written by his friend to the Dean upon ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... world which passed from lip to lip of the statesmen who were watching the course of events from the other side of the Atlantic with the sweet complacency of the looker-on of Lucretius; too often rejoicing in the storm that threatened wreck to institutions and an organization which they felt to be a standing menace to the established order of things in their ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the track in every direction. A few shots rang sharply from behind, and a few more faintly from a startled Boer piquet on Surprise Hill. Then the uproar died away in the valley of the Bell Spruit, leaving the column disordered and amazed at its own wreck. It was a disaster complete, sudden, and incurred by no fault of officers or men. Up to this point the night march, conducted in deep darkness and between the enemy's piquets, had been a conspicuous success, and now in one swift moment the hand of fate had changed ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... enemies. How many have been saved from service in the army by sickness! Some men have been saved from sharing the fall of their house, by being brought up upon their recognizances to a court of law by their enemies; some have been saved by ship-wreck from falling into the hands of pirates; yet we do not feel grateful to such things, because chance has no feeling of the service it renders, nor are we grateful to our enemy, though his lawsuit, while it harassed ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... Tisdall?" Whatever we may surmise, there is nothing to prove that she was disappointed. She was the one star which brightened Swift's storm-tossed course; it is well that she was spared seeing the wreck at the end. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... journey. They had been sent into the Arctic to locate a wireless station, supposed to be placed in the Aleutian Islands; a station run by radical propagandists, part of a world-federation, which proposed to wreck all organized society. Had Dave realized that the missions of sub and airplane were alike he would have been startled. As it was, his face took on a tense, expectant look, his ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... but the third, which was in better condition, took the leap gallantly, and retained her form till it was hid in the cloud of mist below. A reward of ten dollars was offered for the largest fragment of wood that should be found from either wreck, five for the second, and so on. One morsel only was ever seen, and that about a foot in length, was mashed as by a vice, and its edges notched like the teeth of a saw. What had become of the immense quantity of wood which had been precipitated? What unknown ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... of the people were instantly drowned. Some few were saved by swimming, and others by getting on pieces of the wreck. King Beder was among the latter, and, after having been tossed about for some time by the waves and currents, he at length perceived himself near the shore, and not far from a city that seemed large. He exerted his remaining strength to reach the land, and was at length fortunate to come ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... he to himself, 'or rather the wreck of what a man! Oh, for such a heart, with the thews and sinews of a truly ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... that one of His saints, the founder of this house, should lead into sloth and luxury the children of the house he has founded. Sooner could I believe that this is a malignant snare of the most Evil One, who heals the bodily ailments of a few that he may wreck the immortal ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... winds of spring, while snow yet lay on the ground— Forth from the city into the great woods wandering, Into the great silent white woods where they waited in their beauty and majesty For man their companion to come: There, in vision, out of the wreck of cities and civilizations, Slowly out of the ruins of ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... become the owner of their possessions, by means of the will he had forged in the name of his father; and that it was he who had been unnatural enough to denounce the author of his days. With the wreck of their fortune in St. Domingo, he procured his father's release; who, being acquainted with the perversity of his younger son, addressed himself to the department to be reinstated in his property. This was opposed by Louis, who defended his title to the estate by the revolutionary maxim which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Greeby in her best man-to-man style, "feeling chippy? Why, you do look a wreck, I must ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... of the cripple man was an intrusion on the beautiful world in which I was walking. He could no more sing than I could; and his voice was cracked and rusty, and altogether perished. To think that that wreck may have walked the streets some night years ago, as glad at heart as I was, and promising himself a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... milk is spilled, No use growlin' when your hopes are killed, No use kickin' when the lightnin' strikes Or the floods come along an' wreck your dykes; Only thing for a man right then Is to grit his teeth an' ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest

... terrific crash, which would have hurled them through the windows had they not been strapped down. The entire body of the copter crumpled in on itself, and it came to rest, a collapsed wreck, with the two of them sitting in its midst, ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... when the foremast dropped down on the fastenings, dashing the jib-boom into the water with its load of demented human beings. The mainmast followed by the board before we had doubled our distance from the wreck. Both trailed to port, where we could not see them; and now the mizzen stood alone in sad and solitary grandeur, her flapping idle sails lighted up by the spreading conflagration, so that they were stamped very sharply ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... of Park-place go on bravely; the cottage will be very pretty, and the bridge sublime, composed of loose rocks, that will appear to have been tumbled together there the very wreck of the deluge. One stone is of fourteen hundred weight. It will be worth a hundred of Palladio's brigades, that are only fit to be used ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... all right," predicted Herb. "Ten to one they're framing up some low-down game to play on us whenever they find an opening. Maybe they'll try to put our radio set out of commission, just as they stole Jimmy's set and tried to wreck ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... the equipage, and cumbered with the dead and dying; while the fields, as far as the eye could reach, were covered with a host of helpless fugitives. Courage and discipline were forgotten, and Napoleon's army of yesterday was now a splendid wreck—a terror-stricken multitude. His own words best describe it—'It ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various

... their tales of wreck and wrong, Of shame and lust and fraud, They backed their toughest statements with The Brimstone of the Lord, And crackling oaths went to and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... dictionary. He had supposed her to be a foreigner—Spanish, Polish, Czech, French, or something. He had not been able to judge her nationality from the two gruff words, but he had often wondered what had happened to her. She might have been killed in a train wreck or been married to the ape-trainer or gone to some other horrible conclusion. He had pretty well buried her among his forgotten admirations and torments, when lo and behold! she emerged from a crowd of peeresses and ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... doesn't care. He pretended to listen. He was looking at that girl. She's a strange girl. I don't trust her. She believes in myths. Oh, yes, I know. She did not say so, but I can smell out an enemy. She will try to wreck everything. So it is in life. We give everything—sacrifice everything—to pass on our knowledge, our experience, and in the end they break away from ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... Preservation of the Bible. That the Bible is a divine book is proven in that it has survived the wreck of empires and kingdoms and the destruction of costly and carefully gathered libraries and that, too, when there was no special human effort to save it. At times all the constituted powers of earth were arrayed against it, but it has ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... that the change in level began to be manifest about the year 1817. The only sudden elevation of which there is any record occurred in 1822, and this seems to have been less than three feet. Since that year, I was assured by several competent observers, that part of an old wreck, which is firmly embedded near the beach, has sensibly emerged; hence here, as at Chiloe, a slow rise of the land appears to be now in progress. It seems highly probable that the rocks which are corroded in a band at the height of fourteen feet above the sea ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... of travellers in far worse case than themselves. Odo, leaning out, saw that, a dozen yards ahead, a modest chaise of antique pattern had in fact come to grief by the roadside. He called to his postillion to hurry forward, and they were soon abreast of the wreck, about which several people were grouped in anxious colloquy. Odo sprang out to offer his services; but as he alit he felt Cantapresto's ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... hand down arms and ammunition to those that were at work, to defend themselves with if there should be occasion. And it was no more than need: for in less than a quarter of an hour's consultation, they agreed, it seems, that the ship was really a wreck, and that we were all at work endeavouring to save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats; and when we handed our arms into the boat, they concluded, by that act, that we were endeavouring ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... he acquired the wherewithal to wreck the high hopes of the reigning stage manager was a mystery known to him alone. His messmates drained their tots at dinner with conscientious thoroughness, and his into the bargain, striving together ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... ball we each wore special clothing. The mariner who had swum from the wreck to the desert shore had ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... lovely," she sobbed. "It will be ghastly." She sat up abruptly and wiped her eyes. "He is the most heart-breaking thing you ever saw, and he doesn't like me. He doesn't approve of dimples, and he says I am soft. And he has the most desperate old chum you ever saw, a perfect wreck with red whiskers, and they get together every night and play pinochle and smoke smelly old pipes, and he won't have curtains in his bedroom, and he is crazy about a phonograph, and he won't eat ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... cheerful light of day—clothing ourselves with elemental sparks, and shooting with fiery speed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, from hemisphere to hemisphere, far down among the uncouth monsters that wallow in the nether seas, along the wreck-paved floor, thorough the oozy dungeons of the rayless deep; the last intelligence of the crops, whose dancing tassels will in a few months be coquetting with the west wind on those boundless prairies, flashing along the slimy decks of old sunken galleons, which have been ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... him downstairs, but the table was a wreck. There was not a glass of champagne left—not even a sandwich. Mr. Perkupp said he required nothing, but would like a glass of seltzer or soda water. The last syphon was empty. Carrie said: "We have ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith

... could not eat. The stopping had dislodged itself from one of her teeth which was driving her mad with pain and she was going to a dentist at one o'clock. He commiserated with her on her misadventure. Elodie went into realistic details of the wreck of the gold stopping on the praline stuffing of a chocolate. Then an anguished "Ne me coupez pas, Mademoiselle." But Mademoiselle of the Exchange cut ruthlessly, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... June days Elsmere's happiness was perhaps nearer wreck than it had ever been. All strong natures grow restless under such a pressure as was now weighing on Catherine. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... boyhood, it was healthy and nourishing, until it was struck by lightning. It is now a mere trunk, with one twisted bough stretching up into the air, leaving a green branch at the end of it. This sturdy wreck is much valued by the Squire; he calls it his standard-bearer, and compares it to a veteran warrior beaten down in battle, but bearing up his banner to the last. He has actually had a fence built round it, to protect it as much ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... stepped on the frailest craft with which men ever faced the Atlantic, and at that moment the first of the ironclads fired another shell at the nameless ship. It was a crashing shot, but it had come too late to serve justice, or to wreck the ship of mystery; for Karl had let the hydrogen into the cylinders unchecked, and with a mighty rush of flame, and a terrific explosion, the craft of gold gave her "Vale!" And in a cascade of fire, lighting the sea for many miles, and making as day the newly-fallen night, the golden ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... main-sheet, heaving it in and flat with his tremendous muscles, the stern of the schooner lifted high in the air and his body outlined against a white surge of sea sweeping past. All this, and more,—a whole world of chaos and wreck,—in possibly fifteen seconds I had seen ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... clear the blue beyond us through our yawning timbers showed. Yet with entrails torn we clung Like the Spartan to our fox, And on deck no coward tongue Wailed the enemy's hard knocks, Nor that all below us trembled like a wreck upon the rocks. ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... these two children, was now a broken man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the heavy hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to trade—in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... sermons is a vigorous satirist, particularly in that discourse upon "The Ploughers" (1547). His fearlessness is very conspicuous, and his attacks on the bishops who proved untrue to their trust and allowed their dioceses to go to wreck and ruin, ...
— English Satires • Various

... the wrecks were frequent. The superintendent of a division in those days was expected to run trains by telegraph at night, to go out and remove all wrecks, and indeed to do everything. At one time for eight days I was constantly upon the line, day and night, at one wreck or obstruction after another. I was probably the most inconsiderate superintendent that ever was entrusted with the management of a great property, for, never knowing fatigue myself, being kept up by a sense of responsibility probably, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... of corn lost from a vessel would not sink—but a host of them clashing together, after a wreck—they burst open; the corn sinks, or does when saturated; the ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... rush'd into the bowels of the battle. Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up, If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward. He, being in the vaward, plac'd behind With purpose to relieve and follow them, Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke. Hence grew the general wreck and massacre; Enclosed were they with their enemies: A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace, Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back; Whom all France with their chief assembled strength Durst not presume to look once in ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... portion of the lands was confiscated. Loyalty to a Plantagenet was of course treason to a Tudor. But the regeneration of the family rested with their direct descendants, who had saved from the general wreck of their fortunes what may be called a good squire's estate,—about, perhaps, the same rental as my father's, but of much larger acreage. These squires, however, were more looked up to in the county than the wealthiest peer. They were still by far the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... asked me if I ever done anything besides pitch so I told him about the day I played the outfield in Terre Haute when Burns and Stewart shut their eyes going after a fly ball and their skulls come together and it sounded like a freight wreck and they was both layed out so I and Lefty Danvers took their place and in the 8th. inning I come up with 2 on and hit a curve ball off big Jack Rowan and only for the fence that ball wouldn't of made no stops this ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner

... BUMSTEAD, turning quite pale, and momentarily forgetting the snakes which he is just beginning to discover among the stones. "You're getting nervous again, poor wreck, and need some more West Indian cough-mixture.—Wait until I see for myself whether it's ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various

... Nancy,' he replied, without taking his eye from the glass. 'I know her by the white stripe along her black hull. She's a perfect wreck, and both the brave lads ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... in the enjoyment of a triumph that backbiters failed to shake, and that scandal vainly sought to tarnish, when news came of the wreck of the French galleys in Sicilian waters, and of the death of the Marquis de Castellane, who was in command. The marquise on this occasion, as usual, displayed the greatest piety and propriety: although she had no very violent passion for her husband, with whom she had spent ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to blow up a wreck with dynamite because it (the wreck) obstructed navigation; but they blew the bottom out of the river instead, and all the water went through. The Government have been boring for it ever since. I saw some of the bores ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... turn'd their faces, and on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, they would have cross'd once more. But with a crash like thunder fell every loosen'd beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck lay right athwart the stream: And a long shout of triumph rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret-tops was splash'd the yellow foam. And, like a horse unbroken when first he feels the rein, The furious river ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... then of the fact that the barriers which stopped these glens to a height, it may be, of 1,500 feet above the bottom of Glen Spean, have dissolved and left not a wreck behind; in presence of the fact, insisted on by Professor Geikie, that barriers of detritus would undoubtedly have been able to maintain themselves had they ever been there; in presence of the fact that great glaciers once most certainly filled ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... formulas—at least into classes. We shall have no sharp crises nor grave difficulties so long as our Government and this Government keep their more than friendly relations. I see Sir Edward Grey almost every day. We talk of many things—all phases of one vast wreck; and all the clear-cut points that come up I report by telegraph. To-day the talk was of American cargoes in British ships and the machinery they have set up here for fair settlement. Then of Americans ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... and thoughtful than before. He would have liked to give her money, of which he seemed to have an unusual store; but she bade him keep what he had for his own needs. Her own little bit of money, saved from the wreck of their fortunes, was enough for her. Then he went into Ryde and brought her back a Shetland shawl and a new table-cloth for her little sitting-room, which she accepted with a warmer kiss than she had ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... haggard under the riding moon, not a pitch shot from the house where his wife was being waked, that nothing was disturbed because she was dead. It was not strange that the stars kept on their courses, for the death of neither king nor cardinal nor the wreck of the greatest ship that ever sailed the seas would not move them from their accustomed orbit. But not a robin in the hedge was disturbed, not a rabbit in the field, not a weasel in the lane. Nature never put off ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... rifle slung over his back. He was in high spirits and showed us that the proper way to ride Montenegrin horses was to drop the reins on to the animal's neck, kick it in the stomach with both feet, elevating your arms and uttering the most unearthly yells. Thus terrified, the unfortunate wreck would canter a few yards, and our cicerone would turn in his saddle and grin back at us, who were humanely contented with the solemn jog-trot of our aged steeds along the well-worn horse-track—for ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... the wave fell on the deck with a crash like thunder. At the same moment the ship struck, the foremast broke off close to the deck and went over the side, carrying the boat and men along with it. Our oar got entangled with the wreck, and Jack seized an axe to cut it free, but, owing to the motion of the ship, he missed the cordage and struck the axe deep into the oar. Another wave, however, washed it clear of the wreck. We all seized hold ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... presents with such intensity of imaginative power Browning must have known—even if it were but for moments—by experience. And again, there is impressive truth and originality in the description of the state of the poet's mind which succeeded the wreck of his early faith and early hopes inspired by the voice of Shelley—the revolutionary faith in liberty, equality and human perfectibility. Wordsworth in The Prelude—unpublished when Browning wrote ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... one side. The clay between the logs had dried, turned to dust, and fallen away. The roof had sagged. The fireplace was going to wreck. We looked in. Weeds had grown up during the summer through the crevices of the floor. The place was lonely and haunted. "Well," said Reverdy, "this is the kind of a home that Lincoln had as a boy. He was born in a ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... a dozen men were cast ashore from a wreck on an uninhabited island, and left to their own resources, one of course, according to his capacity, would be set to one business and one to another; the strongest to dig and cut wood, and to build huts ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... saw the wreck she had made of her life by throwing away the substance of a good man's love for the fantastic conviction that, as she was not as other girls, she must therefore go a-venturing through the world's mazy high-ways and by-ways until she had found her ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... ceased, it was found that the whole mountain had disappeared. Now there is no eastern end to St. Vincent nor any mountain on the east coast, and the Souffriere is at the northern end. It is impossible, meanwhile, that the wreck of such a mountain should not have left traces visible and notorious to this day. May not the truth be, that the Souffriere had once a lofty cone, which was blasted away in 1718, leaving the present crater-ring ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... that all was lost. To save the wreck of his force from annihilation, he at last commanded a retreat; and as he and such of his officers as were left strove to withdraw the half-frenzied crew in some semblance of order, a bullet struck him down. The gallant bulldog fell from his horse, shot through the arm into the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... they discovered an uninhabited island, about two leagues in length and one in breadth. Here, on the 10th of August, by mismanagement, the commander of the squadron ran his vessel on a rock and lost her. While the other vessels were assisting to save the crew and property from the wreck, Amerigo Vespucci was dispatched in his caravel to search for a safe harbor in the island. He departed in his vessel without his long-boat, and with less than half of his crew, the rest having gone in the boat to the assistance of the wreck. Vespucci found a harbor, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... Donald again, "with having provided the dragoons who rioted in Belfast last week with information which led them to attack and wreck the houses of those who are ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... well, Captain Barnstable, to fear either the wreck of your vessel or the drowning of her crew. How near the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... twenty-six killed and fifty-eight wounded, the captain included, who, as soon as we arrived, went on shore. We sent our wounded men to the hospital, and began to refit. Our rudder was unshipped, or rather the wreck of it, to be spliced. On the fourth morning, at daylight, during a fog, we were not a little astonished at finding ourselves bombarded, and the shells and shot flying fast and thick amongst us. We had taken the precaution of keeping our guns towards the enemy shotted, but fortunately for ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... founder—some go agin wind and weather, right in the teeth of the world, and some drift like poor little boats, without compass or rudder, but yet, the generality cast anchor in deep, clear water at last, and for one wreck, thousands and thousands come in with all sails set—only Mister Ralph, remember this. The craft that ales goes steadily and safe, cuts a still wake; but your leaky vessels makes any amount of whirlpools as they go down. It's only boys," continued Ben, taking the tobacco from his mouth, and ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... the gipsy pressed the foot of his daughter as he bent over the oar. She should know of course that he never intended to keep his end of the bargain. He gave in only when he saw that the Tartar meant to wreck them all on the rocks ahead of them. Why had he, old and experienced as he was, having dealt with those devils of Tartars for so many years, not known better than to return to the boat after he had heard Mehmet say, "It is not fair!" And after he had reflected on the Tartar's ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... which fact meant little to them. But there was something big and significant in their presence behind Hough. Gamblers leagued against a crooked gambling-hell! Durade had lost a fortune, yet not all his fortune. He seemed a haggard, flaming-eyed wreck of the once debonair Durade. His hair was wet and dishevelled, his collar was open, his hand wavered. Blood trickled down from his lower lip. He saw nothing except the gold, the cards, and that steel-nerved, gray-faced, implacable Hough. Behind ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... had gone and spring came back The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck; But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels, Rose like the dead ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow

... over the hikes, leaving wreck and disaster behind, but the crew of the castle stayed safely at home and listened to the tempest cosily, while the flowers bloomed on, and the gulls brought all their relations and colonized the balcony ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... dazzling, sustained, however, that it was of little use, and of great danger. He tried all in his power to shake the inflexibility of Stanhope, but in vain, and at last was obliged to yield as being the feebler of the two. The time lost in this dispute saved the wreck of the army which had just been defeated. What was afterwards done saved ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... always been my creed that when a man has allowed a woman to love him—much more, made her love him, as I did—he is a black-hearted knave to let a change in himself wreck her happiness. Now I am ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... rope was a mystery to Nyland, but it suggested hanging to his thoughts, already lurid, and he leaped for the pantry. There he grimly viewed the wreck and ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... most value was lying ready for instantaneous removal, and I was warned not to unpack or take off my traveling dress. The Bishop and I at once went down to the fire, which was got under, and saw the wreck of the city and the houseless people camping out among the things they had saved. Fire was still burning or smouldering everywhere, high walls were falling, hose were playing on mountains of smouldering timber, whole streets were blocked with masses of fallen brick and ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... time in hope of being seen by a ship, they made a raft from the remains of the wreck, and eight of the crew set off in it to try to reach Tristan, but were never heard of again, poor fellows. A few weeks later a second and successful attempt was made. The men reached Tristan, but in a very exhausted state. Then the Tristanites, ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... have not dared to hide what the actor himself displayed no wish to conceal. Besides the sketches of character which familiarize us with the aboriginal negro in Africa, there is a good moral in the resultless life, which, after all its toils, hazards, and successes leaves the adventurer a stranded wreck in the prime of manhood. One half the natural capacity, employed industriously in lawful commerce, would have made the captain comfortable and independent. Nor is there much to attract in the singular abnegation of civilized happiness in a slaver's career. We may not be surprised, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... of a wit that appeared at that solemn moment hardly natural, and that must have startled rather than pleased, the watchful friends around him. He became unjust in his fretfulness, and those who loved him most could not wish to see him survive the wreck of his intellect. Fever came on, and he died on the ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... me; after seeing her innocently happy in Nugent's arms—how, in God's name, can I claim her as mine? Our marriage has become an impossibility. For her own sake, I cannot, I dare not, appeal to our engagement. The wreck of my happiness is nothing. The wreck of her happiness would be a crime. I absolve her from her engagement. She ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... his own thoughts he opened the paper. The first thing that caught his eye and changed his indifference to involuntarily interest was the announcement, in the most sensational terms, of two supposed dynamite outrages which had taken place on the previous night, resulting in the partial wreck of one house and the almost total destruction of another, together with the death of the Russian police-agent ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford

... task of making a raid on the Danes fell to one Hrafn. He was encountered by Odd, who had at that time the greatest prestige among the Danes as a rover, for he was such a skilled magician that he could range over the sea without a ship, and could often raise tempests by his spells, and wreck the vessels of the enemy. Accordingly, that he might not have to condescend to pit his sea-forces against the rovers, he used to ruffle the waters by enchantment, and cause them to shipwreck his foes. To traders this man was ruthless, but to tillers ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... as seed them Frenchmen As wreck'd on Speeton sands; 'Twas me as seed that schooner ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... "Hail Columbia," And get to "heav'n-born band," And there I strike an up-grade With neither steam nor sand; "Star Spangled Banner" downs me Right in my wildest screaming, I start all right, but dumbly come To voiceless wreck at "streaming." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... although this proved to be an error, it was a natural one for which it is not difficult to find an excuse. Fortunately for the cause of Reform, Wilmot's connection with the government did not last long at that time. A storm was gathering in an unexpected quarter which was destined to wreck the government, and to cause some of its Conservative members to reconsider their opinions with reference to some questions which until then they had regarded ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... snatched glances. Such a moment would not come again. A flitting crash startled him from the canvas. He looked up. The Bambino lay in a pathetic heap on the floor, scattered with fragments of a rare Venetian glass. She sat erect and imperious, looking with scorn at the wreck. Two great tears welled. They overflowed. The floods pressed behind them. She dropped her face in her hands. Before he could reach her she had darted from the chair. The mask of scorn was gone. She fled from ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee

... forest wreck, I took to moralizing like the melancholy Jaques, though in a strain not quite so well worthy of record; and, losing sight of my company, was for some time thrown out. When I caught the dogs up, it was found Reynard was fairly gone to earth in an inaccessible ravine; so we even left him ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... St. Joseph and the Virgin, which are not even ascribed to him, the Virgin in the Annunciation chapel, some parts of the Judith and Holofernes, with which this subject is strangely backed; some few of the figures in the Marriage Feast at Cana chapel, and lastly, the wreck, which is all that remains, of the Assumption of the Virgin—commonly called "Il Paradiso." All the other chapels are either in a ruined state or have been renewed with modern figures during the ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... carried off by the tide!' And it was not until my dress had been completely ruined that I succeeded in wresting myself from him. Upon two other occasions he seized me and ran with me under the cataract, and held me there until I was thoroughly baptized and my bonnets a wreck of ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... launched into a most thrilling description of a scene of peril and rescue. He told of a gallant ship battling with a furious gale: of her striking on a shoal: of the masts going over the side: of wreck and ruin all around, and the wild waves bursting over passengers and crew, and gradually breaking up the ship—"No hope—no hope—only cries ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne

... turning this page by the fireside at Home, and hearing the night wind rumble in the chimney, that slight obstruction was the uppermost fragment of the Wreck of the Royal Charter, Australian trader and passenger ship, Homeward bound, that struck here on the terrible morning of the twenty-sixth of this October, broke into three parts, went down with her treasure of at least five hundred human lives, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... rails to spread or break, no bridges to collapse, no crossings at which collisions may occur, no chance for some sleepy or overworked employee to misunderstand the dispatcher's orders and cause a wreck. ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... foster it as thy veined sun; Thy Heaven and Holy Rood Build toppling on Its strifeful hell; root there thy art, Thy dreams of tenderest bud; Gaze on the heart Of its fetidity, This wreck of me, And sing. O God, what death, in eyes so bound, They see Life's beauty in her draining wound! Lay thou the blind thing down With saurian tusk and bone, With dust of sworded maw And peril's fossil claw, Lest sexton Earth even Man inter, nor trover ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... to land the machine will rock from side to side. In such a case it is far safer to go up into the air than to make the land, because, unless the utmost care is exercised, one of the wing tips will strike the earth and wreck the machine. ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... to God, at least, that the case of the Candias was an isolated one! But no; there is scarcely any corner in Europe that does not exhibit plenty of such, and worse. God alone knows the number of families whose domestic peace has been, of late years, seriously damaged, or has gone to wreck altogether on those very rocks so fatal to Vincenzo.' Alas! that the present civil war should have given birth to much of the same domestic alienation and bitterness in our own midst as we find portrayed in the novel before us. Suffering of this kind, real and severe, exists ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... when he drifts in about one-thirty. If he'd had a load on his mind earlier in the day, he'd got somethin' more now. Just sittin' at the desk doin' nothin made the dew come out on his noble brow like it was the middle of August. He was too much of a wreck to stand any joshin'; so I let him alone, not even tellin' ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... in the name of their general. 'Buonaparte to the Republic of Venice.' 'It is to deliver the finest country in Europe from the iron yoke of the proud House of Austria that the French army has braved obstacles the most difficult to surmount. Victory in union with justice has crowned its efforts. The wreck of the enemy's army has retired behind the Mincio. The French army, in order to follow them, passes over the territory of the Republic of Venice; but it will never forget, that ancient friendship unites the two republics. Religion, government, customs, and property, shall be respected. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... people; they had been too often prostituted, moreover, to idolatrous uses,—and "idolatry" was the worst of blasphemies to the re-discoverers of the Old Testament. Save in some parts of Germany, where the influence of Luther saved the churches from wreck, an iconoclastic wave spread over the greater part of Western Europe, wherever the "new religion" prevailed; everywhere churches were cleared of images and reduced to the state of those described by William Harrison in his Description ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... of Henry might have reigned during the remainder of her life but for pride and folly, two faults fitted to wreck the best-built cause. All was on her side except herself. Her own arrogance drove her from the throne before it had grown ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Connie. "There was a terrible wreck here a long time ago—before they built the lighthouse. But Uncle Tom says no one will ever know just how many lives have been saved because of the good old light. To hear him talk to it you ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler

... he came down as usual. He was a wreck. He said nothing and his mother dared not question him. She knew, from the gossip of the neighborhood. All day he stayed sitting by the fire, silent, feverish, and with bent head, like a little old man. And when he was ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... the peculiar rapid trot of the Mongol horses and the formidable unevenness of the ground. The jolting is almost intolerable. However carefully the traveller's wares may have been packed, they are infallibly damaged; and Madame de Bourboulon says that they strewed the desert with the wreck of their wardrobe and their linen. Her husband laughingly averred that the very money in the iron-bound chests was broken by the violent friction, and his veracity, at first impugned, was confirmed by the exhibition ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... the city," said the contributor, gloomily, being at a loss what to do or say, in view of the wreck ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... aboard a pirate ship three nights ago and sank a German raider 75 miles from this island. If you can pick up the wreck, we are due west." ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... ISLAND or The Mystery of the Wreck One of Billie's friends owned a summer bungalow on Lighthouse Island, near the coast. The school girls made up a party and visited the Island. There was a storm and a wreck, and three little ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... almost untouched, which, had there been any reason for its being held sacred, might well have served as a demonstration of Heaven's special intervention in its behalf. As it was, it seemed to mock the still smouldering wreck of the beautiful stone cathedral just beside it. Among the ruins in this valley of desolation little groups of men darted hither and thither, resembling from the harbour nothing so much as tiny black imps gloating over a congenial environment. I hope never again to see the sight ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... the joyous faces now that circled round the hearth? Gone. Are all gone? Then changed indeed, fearfully changed, is earth! Alas! poor desolated heart, what more remains for thee? (A sad and solitary wreck on life's tempestuous sea)— What but to feel, destroying Time, indeed, has roughly past And blighted fairest dreams of bliss, oh! too, too fair to last; What but to muse on perished joys to which sad memory clings, While pleasure's wrecked and ruined hopes, a mournful band, she brings, ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... long before a fire in a house, or before the wreck of a ship, the wise, nervous rats in droves make their way into another place. And Anna Markovna was directed by the same rat-like, animal, prophetic intuition. And she was right: immediately right after the death of Jennka some fearful ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... of petty thieves, who steal sheep and poultry through mere idleness; and were they confronted with an enemy, would steal themselves away? What is your . . . but a knot of thieves, who pillage the nation under colour of law, and enrich themselves with the wreck of their country? When you consider the enormous debt of above an hundred millions, the intolerable load of taxes and impositions under which we groan, and the manner in which that burden is yearly accumulating, to support two German electorates, without our receiving anything in return, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... may the aristocracy of wealth founded upon the virtues, the toils, and the blood of her revolutionary armies soon vanish, and like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... filthy. We go in at two places to sample the tenantry. In the first we find an old Irish woman who lives here with her two boys. She keeps house for them in two little rooms. Everything is poverty-stricken and dirty. The poor old woman is a wreck in body and in mind. She has buried seven daughters. She says, "I've buried a good flock. Too much trouble broke my very life out of me." We go in at another door. Here is an English woman; she has two children and keeps a boarder. ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... upon the northern coast of California were all known, the presence of one of them led to the wreck of a ship. The shore was obscured by fog, but the soundings made by the sailors showed deep water and led them to believe they were a long distance from land, when suddenly the ship drifted ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... extraordinarily well shaped, and perfectly beautiful. Surprised to see a young lady alone in that place, he sent some of his officers to ask who I was. I answered only by weeping. The shore being covered with the wreck of our ship, they concluded that I was certainly some person who had escaped from the vessel. This conjecture excited the curiosity of the officers, who began to ask me a thousand questions, with assurances that their master ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... cunningly, nor maliciously, whereby the truth will appear—especially the information which was drawn by the alcalde-mayor of the province of Valayan (on whose coast and in whose district the ship was lost), the very next day, and obtained from the men who were saved from the wreck. By this may be seen what passed in this region, and the guilt of the said factor, and that of the admiral, as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... old and helpless man," I returned, bearing his searching glance without flinching, although I had an inward feeling that told me that we were standing in a suspicious attitude, and that one false move would wreck ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... say yet," said the doctor. "If our friends have taken refuge here, it will be on this southern shore, where they could get most sunshine; but I can see no signal flying, no sign of a wreck. But there, I daresay Captain Marsham will run close in for ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... our way through halls and corridors back to the upper world, scrambling and crashing over the debris, and squeezing ourselves through the rabbit-hole by which we had entered. As we passed out of this hot, dark tomb into the brilliant sunlight and the bracing north wind, the gloomy wreck of the place was brought before the imagination with renewed force. The scattered bones, the broken statues, the dead flowers, grouped themselves in the mind into a picture of utter decay. In some of the tombs which have been opened the freshness of the objects has caused one to exclaim at the ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... wore an ornament of gold in her nose; coasts along the shores; is visited by a Cacique; receives a message from Guacanagari; his ship strikes upon a sand-bank in the night; some of his crew desert in a boat; the ship becomes a wreck, and he takes refuge on board a caravel; receives assistance from Guacanagari; transactions with the natives; is invited to the residence of Guacanagari; his affectionate reception of him; his people desire to have permission to remain in ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... wandered by the old home place, and I saw it lie in wreck; all was vanity and despair. I sought for the things that belonged to my childhood days, but none of ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen

... rigging of the Vengeur du Peuple (74), and the two ships drifted side by side in deadly embrace for three hours. When at last they parted the Brunswick had received much damage and lost 158 men, including her captain, who was mortally wounded. The Vengeur was a wreck. A broadside from the Ramillies (74) finished her. She "hauled her colours down and displayed a Union Jack over her quarter, and hailed for quarter having struck, her masts going soon after, and a-sinking".[253] ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... indeed, yes indeed," replied the captain. "Some folks around here yet that was thrown ashore from that wreck. I mind one light haired woman, and a youngster—little girl. We took them in here from the line, you know how we swing the rings out on the line, and draw the poor things in? Well this woman was so frozen we could hardly get the child from her arms. She died next day, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... airplane accident. It may be a complete wreck or the plane may only be slightly injured by a careless landing. Crashes are often classified by the extent of damage. A class A crash, for instance, is a complete washout. A class D crash is an undercarriage and ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser

... she stood by a pauper's bed in the name of simple constancy, stripping herself of all earthly surplusage, exposing her deepest wound, proclaiming the bond—herself its only witness—between her and this speechless wreck, drifting out on the tide of death. She had but to let him go. It was the wild word she had spoken in the name of truth and deathless love that fired the imagination of that slow countryside. It was the touch beyond nature that appeals to the higher ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... distance, and that, shapelessly outlined. The craft bore no light, and had it not been for a voice speaking, I doubt if I could have located even that. The rowboat could not be distinguished—it must have sunken, or else drifted away, a helpless wreck. The first sound my ears caught, echoing across the water, was an oath, and a question, "By God! a good job; do you see that ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... wreck nor ruin there is seen, There not a wave of trouble rolls, But the bright rainbow round the throne Peals endless peace ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... working for the destruction of its indispensable ally, the lawgiving State. How is the rebel to be disarmed? Slain it cannot be by Godhead, since it is still Godhead's own very dearest soul. But hidden, stifled, silenced it must be; or it will wreck the State and leave the Church defenseless. Not until it passes completely away from Godhead, and is reborn as the soul of the hero, can it work anything but the confusion and destruction of the existing order. ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... But to have forged that falchion sorely rued, Who saw her garden wasted by the brand. What wreck, what ruin then must have ensued, From this when wielded by such warrior's hand? If e'er Rogero force, e'er fury shewed, If e'er his mighty valour well was scanned, 'Twas here; 'twas here employed; 'twas here displayed; In the desire ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... paddles, or a sail of palm-leaf matting when the wind is fair. Considerable nicety is also shown in the making of fishing lines and hooks. The former are made from the fibres of a species of climber very neatly twisted. The fish-hooks are made of tortoise-shell, or nails procured from wreck timber. They are without barbs, and our fish-hooks are eagerly sought for in place ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... immediately assuming the offensive, he attacked in turn with great vigor. The enemy was defeated with great slaughter, and the loss of most of his artillery and trains, and the trophies he had captured in the morning. The wreck of his army escaped during the night, and fled in the direction of Staunton and Lynchburg. Pursuit was made to Mount Jackson. Thus ended this, the enemy's last attempt to invade the North via the Shenandoah Valley. I was now enabled to return the 6th corps to the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... like a bird of prey from the hand; the loop went over the runaway's head; the hunter was brought almost to a dead stop; the other animal went up into the air, then fell to his knees, then over on his side. Sedgwick and Browning sprang to him, unfastened him from the wreck, got the reins and secured his head, then took off the lariat, let him up, and tied him to the ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... considered as a remarkable example of a want of fellow-feeling. Of the number of persons who had crowded down to the banks of the canal several had posted themselves upon the high projecting stern of an old vessel which, unfortunately, breaking down with the weight, the whole groupe tumbled with the wreck into the canal, just at the moment when the yachts of the embassy were passing. Although numbers of boats were sailing about the place, none were perceived to go to the assistance of those that were struggling in the water. They even seemed not to know that such ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... would be gorgeous fun to find this island. I've never done anything romantic in my life, and I've always wanted to elope, or something. I'll run away with a drummer in a band—or something like that, if I have to go home without finding an island—a tropical island, with a wreck, too—and sailors buried on it—and gold! ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... however, her fate was more clearly ascertained; not that a vestige of her was to be seen out at sea, but the whole shore for two or three miles was covered with pieces of wreck. The stern-post of a small, French-built vessel, and also a boat considerably damaged in the bow, and turned keel upwards, came on shore as Harry Sherbrooke and his servant were themselves examining the scene. The boat bore, painted ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... with its endless train of attendant evils, into Man's daily life, and by making him disbelieve in and even despair of himself, it has done more perhaps than all other influences added together to deprave his heart and to wreck his life. ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... ventured to cross over without the observance of a religious ceremony, derived from heathen times, to propitiate the spirits of the caverns who were believed to punish the omission of it with storm and ship-wreck. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... of the death-bell is often supposed to be heard at sea before a wreck, and this idea may be either associated with the bell-buoy which marks many sunken, dangerous rocks, or with the religious ceremonies of ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... cruiser were numbered. By no means a new boat when first converted by Captain Semmes into a vessel of war, the hard work and rough usage she had experienced in her seven months at sea, had been too much for her already enfeebled constitution, and she was now little better than a wreck. At last she fairly broke down altogether, was surveyed by a board of her officers, pronounced unseaworthy, and on the 24th of February Captain Semmes makes the ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... to the Prophet just then as if Miss Minerva were going to wreck his life and prepare him accurately ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... tank yes," he finally said, and the last Rasmunsen saw of him his vocabulary was going to wreck in a vain effort to explain the mistake to ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... the duke, "is the wife of Angelo; but her marriage dowry was on board the vessel in which her brother perished, and mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman! for, beside the loss of a most noble and renowned brother, who in his love towards her was ever most kind and natural, in the wreck of her fortune she lost the affections of her husband, the well-seeming Angelo; who pretending to discover some dishonour in this honourable lady (though the true cause was the loss of her dowry) ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... this, he not only could endure, but enjoyed and looked for litter, like Covent Garden wreck after the market. His pictures are often full of it, from side to side; their foregrounds differ from all others in the natural way that things have of lying about in them. Even his richest vegetation, in ideal work, is confused; and he delights in shingle, debris, and heaps of fallen stones. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... not behind their banners When they scoured the Belgian plain, When they taught their Teuton manners By the wreck of farm and fane; Clear of battle's mire and fury On those sightless feet and hid, Thou wast wafted with the story Saying this was German ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various

... 'to the same purpose. Sorrow is selfish and engrossing, or I would have written to express that, even in my own despair, I felt a gleam of pleasure at learning her happy prospects, and at hearing that the good old Baron has escaped the general wreck. Give this to my dearest Rose; it is her poor Flora's only ornament of value, and was the gift of a princess.' She put into his hands a case containing the chain of diamonds with which she used to decorate her hair. 'To me it is in future useless. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... after he has undressed and is lying there, spouting like a sperm-whale and overflowing his reservation like a crock of salt-rising dough in a warm kitchen, and wondering how he can turn over without bulging the side of the car and maybe causing a wreck. Ah me, those dark green curtains with the overcoat buttons on them hide many a distressful spectacle ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb



Words linked to "Wreck" :   destroy, ship, ruin, accident, declination, decline, prang, capsizing



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