"Ransack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Else religion would be to every one just what it should be, the most valuable and reliable friend of men. He explained the gospel of the day without fanaticism, yet with a grand simplicity which needed not to ransack the world for its wisdom, its figures of speech, or its scholastic arts. It was no religious study, hurled in its three divisions at the heart of stony sinners; nor was it what some would call a current article of pulpit manufacture. It was no cold, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... overacting, and I promise you success! Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!" he cried: "up, friend; your life hangs trembling in the ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... knew him at the Siege of Pampelona, he was then a Colonel of French Horse, who when the Town was ransack'd, nobly treated my Brother and my self, preserving us from all Insolencies; and I must own, (besides great Obligations) I have I know not what, that pleads kindly for him about my Heart, and will suffer no other to enter— But ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... not take much—only half-a-dozen articles of plate off the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack the house as ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... drawn in the First Book, that the Poet adds nothing to it in the Second. We were before told, that he was the first who taught Mankind to ransack the Earth for Gold and Silver, and that he was the Architect of Pandaemonium, or the Infernal Place, where the Evil Spirits were to meet in Council. His Speech in this Book is every way suitable to so depraved a ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... pursuit. He was aware, of course, that he could easily buy her an English peer or a foreign Prince for husband. But Sir Tancred's rank and birth satisfied his simple tastes; and he was quite sure that he might ransack the English peerage and the Courts of Europe without finding her as good a husband. He did not perceive that his ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... recall your past, it comes in pictures. You have to ransack a great photographic gallery. Before you can think, you ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... structure. Now one perceived with affright at the very top of one of the towers, a fantastic dwarf climbing, writhing, crawling on all fours, descending outside above the abyss, leaping from projection to projection, and going to ransack the belly of some sculptured gorgon; it was Quasimodo dislodging the crows. Again, in some obscure corner of the church one came in contact with a sort of living chimera, crouching and scowling; it was Quasimodo engaged in thought. Sometimes one caught sight, upon a bell tower, of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... COLONY AT QUEBEC. Several years later, in 1541, Cartier and others attempted to establish a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. As it was hard to get good colonists to settle in the cold climate so far north, the leaders were allowed to ransack the prisons for debtors and criminals to make up the necessary numbers. They selected the neighborhood of the cliffs where Cartier had wintered in 1535, where Quebec now stands, as the most suitable ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... inherit Eternal Life, I must cultivate a correspondence with the Eternal. This is a simple proposition, for Nature is always simple. I take this proposition, and, leaving Nature, proceed to fill it in. I search everywhere for a clue to the Eternal. I ransack literature for a definition of a correspondence between man and God. Obviously that can only come from one source. And the analogies of Science permits us to apply to it. All knowledge lies in Environment. ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... bowed. "Here at last we find rest and refreshment. Let a feast be spread in the great hall, ransack the place for good cheer. We've done brave work this glorious day, my lads, and a merry ending we'll have ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... plain, fall upon the town of Castanium at daybreak; the bands of Victor and Marsus will accompany you and will be also under your orders. My orders are strict, that no one is to be injured unless he resists. Tell the inhabitants that we wish them no harm. Ransack the armourers' shops for arrow and javelin heads, and search all the private houses for weapons; also bring off all the brass, copper, and iron you can find, with every axe head and chopper in the town. We can ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest. "Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air, ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... He had just opened this safe apparently and begun to ransack it. This is my private safe. Mrs. Verplanck has another built into her own room upstairs where she ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... from quick invention came, Nor never stood one word thereof to blot; Much like his wit that was to use the same. But with my verses he his mistress won, Who doated on the dolt beyond all measure. But see, for you to heaven for phrase I run, And ransack all Apollo's golden treasure! Yet by my troth, this fool his love obtains, And I lose you for ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... of defense was, of course, that the compound had been improperly used. For the rest, we relied with well-placed confidence on the want of evidence against us. Mr. Pickup wisely closed his shop for a while, and went off to the Continent to ransack the foreign galleries. I received my five and twenty pounds, rubbed out the beginning of my second Rembrandt, closed the back door of the workshop behind me, and there was another scene of my life at an end. I had but one circumstance ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... will consider these things, and appease the mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, Thrasyllus, to make equals of this soft-tongued race. Why, these Ionians, do they not enjoy themselves in perpetual holidays?—spend days at the banquet?—ransack earth and sea for dainties and for perfumes?—and shall they be the equals of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome, that we may well have no fear of death? I ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... by skilful orators to seem damning and unanswerable. All the arts for inflaming popular passion under the pretext of "patriotism" would have been used, and we know that patriotism sometimes assumes strange disguises. The material would have been rich and easily accessible. Instead of having to ransack ancient numbers of Irish or American newspapers for incautious phrases dropped by Mr. Redmond or Mr. O'Brien in moments of unusual provocation, the speeches of Botha, Steyn, and De Wet, during the war, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Stringer set out for Albany with a small stock of drugs. On September 7 he wrote Potts from Albany that he hoped the small supply that he obtained and the chest of medicines that Morgan had just sent would hold out until he could obtain additional supplies in New England, where he was then headed "to ransack that Country of those articles ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... of winter, in January or February, I happen, out in the fields, to ransack the Spider's dwelling, after the rain, snow and frost have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the bastion at the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of vigour, still carrying her family. This vehicular upbringing lasts ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... to use Doctor Johnson's words, the translator "exhibits his author's thoughts in such a dress as the author would have given them had his language been English." That same "indefatigable youthfulness" which converted courtiers into sailors and despatched them into unknown seas to ransack new worlds, urged men of the pen to seek out and to pillage, with an equal ardor of adventure, the intellectual wealth of their contemporaries in other lands and the buried and forgotten stores of the ancients upon their own neighboring ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... East, the scene of his chief diplomatic successes, a part of the world in which his Imperial word is law. He will continue to shower his favours upon it, and disturb everything there, so as to be able to fish in troubled waters. He will ransack everything for his purposes, even that very vague thing, homogeneous Turkey, based on the Mussulman faith. At this moment, he is planning I know not what kind of acceptance of the Cross by the Crescent, just as he planned Prince Henry's Chinese crusade. If the Cuban ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... Aronnax," Captain Nemo then said. "You observe this confined bay? A month from now in this very place, the numerous fishing boats of the harvesters will gather, and these are the waters their divers will ransack so daringly. This bay is felicitously laid out for their type of fishing. It's sheltered from the strongest winds, and the sea is never very turbulent here, highly favorable conditions for diving work. Now let's put on our underwater suits, and ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... for a season. A prize of about five hundred prisoners was all which rewarded the sagacity of the enterprise. It is needless to add that they were all immediately executed. It is a wearisome and odious task to ransack the mouldy records of three centuries ago, in order to reproduce the obscure names of the thousands who were thus sacrificed.. The dead have buried their dead, and are forgotten. It is likewise hardly necessary to state that the proceedings before the council were all ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... repeated vaguely. Then a rush of blood went over his whole face, up to his forehead. His dreamy dark eyes looked suddenly anything but dreamy. "Good Heavens!" he gasped. "What have you got there?" and began to ransack all the pockets of his waistcoat and coat until he found the twin of the book he'd given me. "This is what I meant you to see," he said in ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wildness and simplicity, when fancy, awakened by the sight of interesting objects, was most actively at work. At such moments, sensibility quickly furnishes similes, and the sublimated spirits combine images, which rising spontaneously, it is not necessary coldly to ransack the understanding or memory, till the laborious efforts of judgment exclude present sensations, and ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... most profound astonishment on noticing any piece of furniture freshly upholstered in her well-appointed apartment. You must immediately make her explain to you the advantages of the change; and then you must ransack your mind to discover whether there be not some ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honour they acquired for themselves, and the great services they rendered to Christianity. In the following pages we shall ransack the stores of both, to discover the true spirit that animated the motley multitude who took up arms in the service of the cross, leaving history to vouch for facts, but not disdaining the aid of contemporary poetry and romance, to throw ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... that I wander about Paris a great deal, like book collectors who ransack book stalls. I just look at the sights, at the people, at all that is passing by and all ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... him at his word and began to ransack the house, while Mordecai and Leah, paralyzed with fear, great beads of perspiration starting from their foreheads, sat idly by and watched the work of destruction. Not an article of furniture was left entire in the wild search for treasure, which, according to popular belief, every ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... ones cry for hunger, so I ransack the ruins and bring away my spoils. Eat, Kinder, eat and ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... poverty. But yet with most of them it was much otherwise, and they fell perpetually into such miserable penury, that they were forced to devour or squeeze most of their friends and servants, to cheat with infamous projects, to ransack and pillage all their provinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their estates, two other thirds ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... strenuous grapple of the native forces which all alien things must yield to till they take the American cast. It is almost dismaying, that physiognomy, before it familiarizes itself anew; and in the brief first moment while it is yet objective, you ransack your conscience for any sins you may have committed in your absence from it and make ready to do penance for them. I felt almost as if I had brought the dirty streets with me, and were guilty of having left them lying about, so impossible were they with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... bail to await the action of the grand jury, which was soon to convene. Both he and his family had foreseen the event, and he had made the necessary arrangements for the conduct of his business. Humiliating as his arrest was, they all bore it with Spartan courage, and prepared to ransack the earth, if need be, to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... day. Find out where he lives and what he does; and ransack his room if possible. He is either an innocent man or a sleek rascal. Report to me ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... The portrait was made here and—at Fredericks'. His studio was on the corner of Ninth Street up to a few years ago. It's a trail after my own mind. If that negative is in existence, I'll find it, if I have to ransack half the photograph-studios in town. About how old do you ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... above twenty minutes contemplating this singular crystal fossil of a ship, and considering whether I should go down to her and ransack her for whatever might answer my turn. But she looked so darkly secret under her white garb, and there was something so terrible in the aspect of the motionless snow-clad sentinel who leaned upon the rail, that my heart ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... destroyed with a belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the gifts of Providence not to fall in with his little plans. Of coorse we'll mut'ny till all's dry. Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the company officers, ransack the arsenal, and then—Boys, did he tell you what next? He told me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we're to join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip Singh and ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... new principle, revisits the day, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm. Men say, Where did he get this? and think there was something divine in his life. But no; they have myriads of facts just as good, would they only get a lamp to ransack ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... grabbed my horse and put that sack over my head. They had mistaken me for you; and they brought me here, into your house, and pulled the sack off and were decidedly disagreeable at finding they had made a mistake. One of them had gone in to ransack your effects and when they pulled off the bag and disclosed the wrong hare, he dropped his loot on the floor; and then I told them to go to the devil, and I hope they've done it! When you came in I was picking up your traps, and I submit that ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... heir. I care for nothing now. Here are my keys. Hang me, if that's your good pleasure. Take all, ransack the house; it is full of gold. I give up all ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... sociable while we were regaling ourselves, but not knowing how to go about it, was silent. Thus the onus fell upon us. So we began;—the crops, the weather, the soil, the neighbors, the invasion, the Great City. We had to ransack our heads for topics, each being quickly exhausted. We ate all our sharp appetites asked for; sharp they were, for it was now the middle of the afternoon, and we had been up since 3 o'clock A.M. Rising to go we offered money but the patriotic lady refused ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... of misused wine! With freedom led to every part, And secret chamber of the heart, Dost thou thy friendly host betray, And shew thy riotous gang the way To enter in, with covert treason, O'erthrow the drowsy guard of reason, To ransack the abandon'd place, And ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... poorest classes, entirely unmolested; and that we trusted much on many occasions to the honesty of the people, and never found cause to repent our trust—I cannot but feel that it would be an ungracious act to ransack newspapers and Reports to furnish materials for recording in detail, the vices of a population whom I have only personally known by their virtues. Let you and I, reader, leave off with the same pleasant impressions of the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... modern history offers no other instance of forced labour and wholesale deportations. If, fifty years ago, the conscience of the world revolted against black slavery, what should its feelings be today when it is confronted with this new and most appalling form of white slavery? We should in vain ransack the chronicles of history to find, even in ancient times, crimes similar to this one. For the Jews were at war with Babylon, the Gauls were at war with Rome. Belgium did not wage war against Germany. She merely refused ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... except through the general. There is no choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning and say, 'I am full of life, I will go to sea and find an Antarctic continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany and find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I foresee a new mechanic power:' no, but he finds himself in the river of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities of his contemporaries. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... have they taken thee, My only one, my darling? Oh, the brigands! Naples shall bleed for this. What do ye here, Slaves, fools, who stare upon me? Know ye not I have been robbed? Hence! Ransack every house From cave to roof in Naples. Search all streets. Arrest whomso ye meet. Let no sail stir From out the harbor. Ring the alarum! Quick! This is a general woe. [Exeunt LUCA and FIAMETTA.] The Duke's ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... had devoted themselves with indefatigable perseverance to traversing, sometimes singly, but more frequently in bands of two, three, or more, Italy, Greece, Spain, and the more civilized countries of Europe for the purpose of ransacking,—or pretending to ransack,—the shelves of convent libraries of their treasures. As scarcely anything was more profitable than searching for MSS.,— particularly when it was certain that, after the looking for, they would be found, if not of the particular authors wanted, yet of others that would repay for ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... said, loftily, "you don't expect to find him in here, I suppose? Of course, if your duty carries you so far as to ransack a lady's room, I ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... methods—the spontaneous, the carefully perfected, the oral, the written—heretofore explained in this chapter. In your final work on a passage you should aim at a faultless rendition, and should spend time and ransack the lexicons rather than ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... home, but if the Plague spreads—and it looks as if all the City would presently be affected—all will have to run the risk of contagion. There are thousands of women now who voluntarily enter the houses as nurses for a small rate of pay. Even robbers, they say, will enter and ransack the houses of the dead in search of plunder. It will be a shame indeed then if one should shrink from doing so when ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... to the world the Epoques de la Nature. "As in civil history one consults titles, hunts up medals, deciphers antique inscriptions to determine the epochs of revolutions amongst mankind, and to fix the date of events in the moral world, so, in natural history, we must ransack the archives of the universe, drag from the entrails of the earth the olden monuments, gather together their ruins and collect into a body of proofs all the indications of physical changes that can guide us back to the different ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... take much—only half a dozen articles of plate off the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack the house, as they ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him: on the very brink of the last scandal, a cold, caught at some Vipont's ball, became fever; and so from that door the Black Horses bore away the Bloomsbury Dame, ere she was yet—the fashion! Happy in grief the widower who may, with confiding hand, ransack the lost wife's harmless desk, sure that no thought concealed from him in life will rise accusing from the treasured papers. But that pale proud mourner, hurrying the eye over sweet-scented billets; compelled, in very justice to the dead, to convince himself that the mother of his children ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Robert was drawn into a list. Then, full of joyfulness at being allowed to help, she gathered up her reins, she nodded her pretty little head at him, and was just starting off her ponies at full speed, equally eager 'to tell Harry' and to ransack Churton for the stores required, when it occurred to her to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... They were led to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that there have been terrible ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... figs. Our nerves have been adapted to the circumstances of our early life as a race in tropical forests; and we still retain a marked liking for sweets of every sort. Not content with our strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, apples, pears, cherries, plums and other northern fruits, we ransack the world for dates, figs, raisins, and oranges. Indeed, in spite of our acquired meat-eating propensities, it may be fairly said that fruits and seeds (including wheat, rice, peas, beans, and other grains and pulse) still form by far the most important element in the ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... rich in blessings: Earth and Ocean, flame and wind, Have unnumber'd secrets still, To be ransack'd when you will, For the service of mankind; Science is a child as yet, And her power and scope shall grow, And her triumphs in the future Shall diminish toil and woe; Shall extend the bounds of pleasure With an ever-widening ken, And of woods ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... once for that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace of ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... automatic gaze of the Greeks and Turks exhibited on the Boulevard du Temple, and say sternly, "Go away!" There were days when he had lucid intervals and could give his wife excellent advice as to the sale of their wines; but at such times he became extremely annoying, and would ransack her closets and steal her delicacies, which he devoured in secret. Occasionally, when the usual visitors made their appearance he would treat them with civility; but as a general thing his remarks and replies ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... from behind and swiftly stabbed him several times in the back with his knife. The master fell unconscious, and the mistress began to run about, screaming, while Yanson, showing his teeth and brandishing his knife, began to ransack the trunks and the chests of drawers. He found the money he sought, and then, as if noticing the mistress for the first time, and as though unexpectedly even to himself, he rushed upon her in order to violate her. But as he had let ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... allow no freedom of thought of her or service of her other than their own, take to the cudgel and the rifle, and join sectarian orders or lodges to ensure that Ireland will be made in their own ignoble image. Those who love Ireland nobly desire for her the highest of human destinies. They would ransack the ages and accumulate wisdom to make Irish life seem as noble in men's eyes as any the world has known. The better minds in every race, eliminating passion and prejudice, by the exercise of the imaginative reason have revealed to their countrymen ideals which ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... time, there gold is always to be collected, the water having separated the metal from the earth, and deposited it in the sands, thereby saving the expence of digging; hence it is esteemed an infallible gain to be able to divert a stream from its channel, and ransack its bed. From this account of the manner of gathering gold, it should follow that there are no mines of this metal in Brazil, and this the governor of Rio Grande, who happened to be at St Catharines, and frequently visited Mr Anson, did most confidently affirm, assuring ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... of wandering the Tables of the Law seemed to have reached a place of enduring rest. Solomon, the Wise, decided to provide them with a magnificent home. Far and wide his messengers travelled to ransack the world for rare woods and precious metals. The entire nation was asked to offer its wealth to make the House of God worthy of its holy name. Higher and higher the walls of the temple arose guarding the sacred Laws of Jehovah for all ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... compasses, And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives, And is deceiv'd: whilst man doth ransack man And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... the Irish than he has resigned a shilling of his own public emoluments. An Irish peasant fills the barrel of his gun full of tow dipped in oil, butters up the lock, buries it in a bog, and allows the Orange bloodhound to ransack his cottage at pleasure. Be just and kind to the Irish, and you will indeed disarm them; rescue them from the degraded servitude in which they are held by a handful of their own countrymen, and you will add four millions of brave and ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... is yonder in that hell outside and will inevitably be captured by its most lustful devil—or else be murdered. I am here like a trapped rat, impotent, waiting to be killed, which Cazaio's men will presently attend to when they ransack the place and find me. And I feel nothing, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... would collect Elzeviers. Moreover, he would continue to collect them until he had acquired both the 'Pastissier Francois' and the 1635 'Caesar.' Such was the confidence of youth! So he sallied forth straight away, determined to ransack the nooks and corners of certain ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... Chimaera's kind, Lions before, and dragons were behind. Then from the clashes between popes and kings, Debate, like sparks from flints' collision, springs: As Jove's loud thunderbolts were forged by heat, The like our Cyclops on their anvils beat; 170 All the rich mines of learning ransack'd are, To furnish ammunition for this war: Uncharitable zeal our reason whets, And double edges on our passion sets; 'Tis the most certain sign the world's accursed, That the best things corrupted are the worst; 'Twas the corrupted ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... home in idleness and riot, Ransack for mistresses th' unwholesome stews, And never know the ...
— 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
... sah, and of co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah, not even in dey vittles, sah, even if dey was pie, which dey wa'n't, sah, fob dis we'y day Mistah Falk he wants pie and stew'd he come, and me and he, sah, we sho' ransack dis galley, sah, and try like we can, not even two of us togetheh, sah, can sca' up a piece of pie foh ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... particle of sound reason in it. If all the bones in the United States could be saved and applied to the land again, we should still fall short of a supply, and be obliged to do as England did before the introduction of guano; go about and ransack grave yards of great battlefields, for more bones. With all the guano imported, or that will be imported, and all the bones that will be saved, there will still be room for more phosphates in the millions of acres of hungry soil in America. What would ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... be in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, whose amiable and affectionate disposition had quickly recommended him to her regard. The boy was busied about some mechanical contrivance; his lameness made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack his tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary to his work. Moore happened to be absent. Mr. Hall, indeed, had called for him to take a long walk. Henry could not immediately find the object of his search. He rummaged compartment after compartment; and at last, opening an ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Difficulties only arouse the genius of the clerks, who may really be called men-of-letters, and who set about to search for that unknown human being with as much ardor as the mathematicians of the Bureau give to longitudes. They literally ransack the whole kingdom. At the first ray of hope all the post-offices in Paris are alert. Sometimes the receiver of a missing letter is amazed at the network of scrawled directions which covers both back and front of the missive,—glorious vouchers for the administrative persistency with which the post ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... soldiers' prey and rapine brought in riot; Men took delight in jewels, houses, plate, And scorn'd old sparing diet, and ware robes Too light for women; Poverty, who hatch'd Rome's greatest wits,[593] was loath'd, and all the world Ransack'd for gold, which breeds the world['s] decay; And then large limits had their butting lands; The ground, which Curius and Camillus till'd, 170 Was stretched unto the fields of hinds unknown. Again, this people could not brook calm peace; Them freedom without war ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... fir-built things with bits of striped bunting at their mast-heads," as George Canning, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, described them. Long before the declaration of war British squadrons hovered off the port of New York to ransack merchant vessels or to seize them as prizes. In the course of the Napoleonic wars England had met and destroyed the navies of all her enemies in Europe. The battles of Copenhagen, the Nile, Trafalgar, and a hundred lesser fights had thundered to ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... comfort. Was this to be the end of his strange visit? Was he to start back upon his homeward journey without an opportunity to bid his phenomenal hosts good-bye? He could not bear the thought. Dorothy at all events must be found. He would search the grounds and ransack the house. Surely she must be somewhere within reach of his voice. But then she was so strange, so different from any woman he had ever known. How could he tell, perhaps she had left the old place forever! Henley had not realized until now what a deep and ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... in upon her, "what is this world which we ransack, but a stupendous charnel-house? Every thing that we deem most lovely, ask its origin?—Decay! When we rifle nature, and collect wisdom, are we not like the hags of old, culling simples from the rank grave, and extracting ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Turgan. Glavour will ransack the Earth rather than be cheated of one he has marked for his prey. Lura will be safe nowhere on Earth. Her capture by the Sons of God will discourage the timid who will say that if Turgan cannot protect his own ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... o'clock Squire Ray went out to attend to a business meeting, and Clarence was left in possession of the study. He locked the door, and began to ransack his father's desk. At length ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... gander for its wisdom, knowing that the youthful gosling is proverbially "green." Miss Whiffle selected the aged gander for me, and I gnawed its sinewy limbs without a protest. On a similar principle she appeared to ransack the town shops for prehistoric joints (the locality was rich in fossils), and vegetables that, like eggs, only grew harder the more they ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... the front of it came down and it changed into a writing desk, with an intriguing array of small drawers and pigeonholes at the back of it, and a suspicion of alluring and unattainable treasures in every separate receptacle. To ransack all of these was Keith's most audacious dream, but when the dream came true at last, it was fraught with no ecstasy of realization, for he was a middle-aged man, and in the room behind him ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... Islands, whither the north wind might have carried the castaways; then, if he was convinced that they had not been received in any of the ports of that locality, he would continue his search beyond the Northern Ocean, ransack the whole western coast of Norway as far as Bodoe, the place nearest the scene of the shipwreck; ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... the majority of men are willing or able to live, a service exactly similar to that which Greece, at the time of the great Asiatic invasions, rendered to the mother of this civilization. But, while the service is similar, the act surpasses all comparison. We may ransack history in vain for aught to approach it in grandeur. The magnificent sacrifice at Thermopylae, which is perhaps the noblest action in the annals of war, is illumined with an equally heroic but less ideal light, for ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... whistling tears the air and there is a shower of shrapnel above us. Meteorites flash and scatter in fearful flight in the heart of the yellow clouds. Revolving missiles rush through the heavens to break and burn upon the bill, to ransack it and exhume the old bones of men; and the thundering flames multiply themselves along an ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... we'd better repair to your room, Alice, where we can obtain the necessary articles. Mr. Smilk will naturally want to ransack your room anyhow, so we 'll be saving quite a bit of time. And the police are likely to be here ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... should pursue at school. There was nothing in his errand that he should be ashamed of, he reminded himself with impatient severity, as he traversed the upper hall on tip-toe to the western chamber. He had, on sundry previous occasions, sought, in the receptacles he was about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the like trifles. Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he was too ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... with the mode in which he executed his promise to teach his vassal dancing. The following specimen of raillery is worth commemoration:—"What, Satan! is this the dancing that Richard gave himself to thee for? &c. Canst thou dance no better? &c. Ransack the old records of all past times and places in thy memory; canst thou not there find out some better way of trampling? Pump thine invention dry; cannot the universal seed-plot of subtile wiles and stratagems spring up one new method of cutting capers? Is this the top of skill and pride, to shuffle ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them? But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away," he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, "and at ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and the distinction of the two natures, and to invent such forms of speech, such symbols of doctrine, as were least susceptible of doubt or ambiguity. The poverty of ideas and language tempted them to ransack art and nature for every possible comparison, and each comparison mislead their fancy in the explanation of an incomparable mystery. In the polemic microscope, an atom is enlarged to a monster, and each party was skilful to exaggerate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... were driven toward the prow, and made to understand by signs that they must not move on peril of their lives. A Tuck was placed at the helm, and the tartane's head turned towards the pirate captor; and all the others, who were not employed otherwise, began to ransack the vessel and feast on the provisions. Some hams were thrown overboard, with shouts of evident scorn as belonging to the unclean beast, but the wine was eagerly drank, and Maitre Hebert uttered a wail of dismay ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... account of Huss and his work." Huss? Who was he and what did he do? The name looks strangely familiar. You ransack your budget of historic facts much as you would hunt for a bit of silk in a rag-bag. You are sure it is somewhere in your mind near the top—you saw it there the other day when you were looking up the beginnings of the Reformation. But where is it now? You fish out all manner ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... to-day search the mounds of Assyria for relics of the ancient civilizations of the East, so did the Humanists ransack the libraries of the monasteries and cathedrals, and all the out-of-the-way places of Europe, for old manuscripts of the classic writers. The precious documents were found covered with mould in damp cellars, or loaded with dust in the attics of monasteries. This late search for these remains of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... letter unwisely recorded the slaughter of a boar, had been obliged to ransack Vienna for a pair of tusks. The tusks had not been so difficult. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Mr. Hobbs, and forthwith began to ransack his pockets for the band which said he ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... journey neither spoke to her nor watched her, though Isabel shone in borrowed plumes. There had been no time to buy clothes, and so Val, though grudgingly, had allowed Laura and Yvonne to ransack their shelves and presses for Cinderella's adornment. But one glance had painted her portrait for him, tall and slender in a long sealskin coat of Yvonne's which was rulled and collared and flounced with fur, her glossy hair parted on one side and drawn back into what she called a soup-plate ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... darkness as well that is hurled by their clouds of excretion. Other shadows go and come on the ground about me; and then I hear in the air the plunge of beating wings, and cries so fierce that I feel them ransack ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... for his Play, and says, The Younger Brother, or, The Fortunate Cheat, had been much properer. [Footnote: Collier, p. 210.] This shews some good will he has to the Comick Trade however; and I doubt not, but if his Closet were Ransack'd, we might find a divertive Scene or two, effects of his idle Non-preaching hours, where Modesty, Wit, and good Behaviour, would be shewn ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... have been his first thought. But—it would need a stout-hearted criminal to go through the pockets of his victim, and if the motive were other than theft, it might be that the pearls and papers were still on the body. If Clo failed to find them elsewhere she would have to ransack those pockets. The thought was too horrible to dwell upon. Frantically she tossed over the contents of the suitcase, lifting and shaking every garment scattered on the bed. She peered under the pillows; she pulled out the drawers of wash-stand and dressing-table; but there was nothing ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thoughts 680 Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of Heav'ns pavement, trod'n Gold, Then aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific: by him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught, Ransack'd the Center, and with impious hands Rifl'd the bowels of thir mother Earth For Treasures better hid. Soon had his crew Op'nd into the Hill a spacious wound And dig'd out ribs of Gold. Let none admire 690 That riches grow in Hell; that soyle may best Deserve the pretious bane. And ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... list she handed me, and wondered what Harry, who had to visit Vancouver, would say when he found I had pledged him to ransack the dry-goods stores for all kinds of fabrics. Still, I felt I should have faced much more than my comrades' remonstrances to please Grace Carrington then, as she stood beside me, glorified as it were ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... sad, heart-rending sight, pitiful evidence of the degrading influence of war. During the first year of the struggle there was not a man in the British army who would have pushed a woman aside to ransack the sacred corners of her chamber. But war's brutal influence in time blunted the finer instincts. How could it be otherwise? The longer a struggle is protracted the fiercer and more bestial it will become, until at last familiarity ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... service, sir! Spare no money; ransack heaven and earth if it is necessary; but, in God's name, let me know, and let me know soon, where De Vlierbeck and his daughter are hidden. It is impossible for me to describe the sufferings of my heart or the ardor of my desire to find them. Let me assure you that the first good ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... keeps her Majesty's slippers and the great seal of State. We were very exact, you see. Yes, sir-we were very exact. Our vulgar people, you see-I mean such as have got up by trade, and that sort of thing-went to a vast expense in sending to England a man of great learning and much aforethought, to ransack heraldry court and trace out their families. Well, he went, lived very expensively, spent several years abroad, and being very clever in his way, returned, bringing them all pedigrees of the very best kind. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... mother. The infant, too! how inimitably blended is the God-like serenity of the Saviour, with the fond and graceful witcheries of the loving child! How little we know of the beauties of the Spanish school! Would I could ransack their ancient monasteries, and bring a few of them ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... the will, was separated from his wife's bedroom by her boudoir. The walls were thick; through them no ordinary sound could penetrate, and, unless since his departure Jeanne had moved her maid or some other chaperon into his bedroom, he could ransack it at his leisure. The safe in which he would replace the will was in the dining-room. From the sleeping-quarters of Preston, the butler, and the other servants it was ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... has no mercy on himself, and no mercy on others," he explained, "where his literary labors are concerned. You must spare yourself, Miss Emily. It is not only absurd, it's cruel, to expect you to ransack old newspapers for discoveries in Yucatan, from the time when Stephens published his 'Travels in Central America'—nearly forty years since! Begin with back numbers published within a few years—say five years from the present date—and let ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... alarm, on missing so costly a possession, can be readily imagined. I could not be expected to endure so serious a deprivation without making a desperate effort to retrieve my fallen fortunes. I therefore proclaimed to all and sundry my inflexible determination to ransack the house from the top brick of the chimney to the darkest recesses of the cellar in quest of my vanished treasure. I began with a queer old triangular cupboard that occupied one corner of the kitchen. And in the deepest and dustiest corner of the top shelf of that cavernous old cupboard, ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... prog,(3) Will oftentimes ransack the bog, To finnd a sneel, or weel-fed frog, To give relief; But I prefer a leg of hog, Or ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... all arts, all crafts appal: At Mars' harsh blast arch, rampart, altar fall! Ah! hard as adamant, a braggart Czar Arms vassal-swarms, and fans a fatal war! Rampant at that bad call, a Vandal-band Harass, and harm, and ransack Wallach-land! A Tartar phalanx Balkan's scarp hath past, And Allah's standard falls, alas! ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... the Hotel de Pekin before I had done anything startling, and soon C——, the genial and energetic Swiss, who is the master of this wonderful hostelry, had given me coffee. He told me then to go into his private rooms, ransack the place and take what I liked. I found I was not alone in his private apartments. Baron R——, the Russian commandant, had just come in before me, and had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue as he was in the act of eating something. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the tree he ordered the negress to change Nell's dress while he himself unleashed Saba, whom previously he had tied from fear that in following his tracks he might scare away the game; afterwards he began to ransack all the clothing and luggage in the hope that he might find ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... once more. He would never forgive himself for having allowed that girl to ransack his drawers—but he must act, and at once! He must, without fail, find that mislaid document. Of one thing he was sure—the document was not on the premises. Brocq jumped ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... piece of cowardice for authors to put feigned names to their works, as if, like bastards of their brain, they were afraid to own them. Thus one styles himself Telemachus, another Stelenus, a third Polycrates, another Thrasyma-chus, and so on. By the same liberty we may ransack the whole alphabet, and jumble together any letters that come next to hand. It is farther very pleasant when these coxcombs employ their pens in writing congratulatory episdes, poems, and panegyricks, upon each other, wherein one ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... are pearle-imbroderies, That not adorne, but cloud thy wast; Thou shalt be cloath'd above all prise, If thou wilt promise me imbrac't. Wee'l ransack neither chest nor shelfe: Ill cover thee with ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... his person, I had no doubt; and argument began to tell me that, after all, a safe might not be necessary. If alarm came it would come from the sea; or from the lower doors, which were locked against his devil's crew. I began to say that the keys would be in a drawer or bureau, and I was going to ransack every piece of furniture, when—and this seemed beyond all reason—I saw something shining bright upon a little table in the corner, and crossing the room I picked up the very thing for which a man might have offered the half of ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... manners and customs such as circumcision, both female and male, and other subjects, all of which he utilised when he came to write his Notes and Terminal Essay to The Arabian Nights, particularly the articles on Al Islam and woman. Then, too, when at Bombay and other large towns he used to ransack the bazaars for rare books and manuscripts, whether ancient or contemporaneous. Still, the most valuable portion of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... then he took her hands, and his old smile was on his face. 'Don't have any more mistaken fancies, Audrey; all the gold of the Indies would not separate us. If I furnish my house, I will promise you that Gage and you shall ransack Wardour Street with me; and when you are married, my dear, you shall choose what I shall give you;' and as he said this he stooped over her, for she was still kneeling before the fire, and kissed her very gently just above her ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... demanded that a banquet be prepared for them. Though the royal party was masked, the unwilling host knew his guests but too well, and dared not deny their peremptory command. In the midst of the carousal, at a preconcerted signal, the king's followers began to ransack the house, maltreating the occupants, wantonly destroying the costly furniture, appropriating the silver plate, and breaking open doors and coffers in search of money. The next day even Paris itself was indignant at the base conduct ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... in the morning, nearly half-past ten. The young man hurried downstairs and began to ransack the pantry. He did not want to be long away from the upper room. Once, as he was stooping to search the refrigerator for butter and milk he paused in his work and thought he heard a sound at the front door, but then all seemed still, and he hurriedly ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... of an hour, in pursuance of her husband's counsel, the Mistress sat and waited for the prodigal's return. Then, surreptitiously, she made a round of the house; sent a man to ransack the stables, telephoned to the gate lodge, and finally came into the ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... cried Alexia, who had small respect for the parlor boarders and their graces, "and eat what you like, Penelope. I'm going to ransack this table for a tart for ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... on one sometimes, I suppose. Well, shall we go in? I have shown you all the wonders of the garden, and told you all the wonders connected with it of which I know aught. No doubt there would be other wonders more wonderful, if one could ransack the private history of all the Claverings for the last hundred years. I hope, Miss Burton, that any marvels which may attend your career here may be happy marvels." She then took Florence by the hand, and, drawing close to her, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... our return to the anchorage, a party of officers and myself went to ransack an old Indian grave, which I had found on the summit of a neighbouring hill. Two immense stones, each probably weighing at least a couple of tons, had been placed in front of a ledge of rock about ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Spaniard, occasionally beheld riding beside him. If it is possible to connect a woman with the devoutest of their anticipations, the sons of leisure up there will do it. But, in truth, an English world was having cause to ransack the dust-heaps for neglected men of mettle. Our intermittent ague, known as dread of invasion, was over the land. Twice down the columns of panic newspaper correspondence Lord Ormont saw his name cited, with the effect ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... very poor figure with those same arguments among those who are on the other side. Would you find out for yourself from books? What learning you will need! What languages you must learn; what libraries you must ransack; what an amount of reading must be got through! Who will guide me in such a choice? It will be hard to find the best books on the opposite side in any one country, and all the harder to find those on all sides; when found they would be easily answered. The ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... into consideration; take counsel &c (be advised) 695; commune with oneself, bethink oneself; collect one's thoughts; revolve in the mind, turn over in the mind, run over in the mind; chew the cud upon, sleep upon; take counsel of one's pillow, advise with one's pillow. rack one's brains, ransack one's brains, crack one's brains, beat one's brains, cudgel one's brains; set one's brain to work, set one's wits to work. harbor an idea, entertain an idea, cherish an idea, nurture an idea &c 453; take into one's head; bear in mind; reconsider. occur; present itself, suggest itself; come ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sentimentality is true. But why assume that the men do not exist who are capable of such a measure of self-control? Grant that there are whole volumes of devotional matter, original and compiled, which one may ransack without finding a single form that is not either prolix, wishy-washy, or superstitious—it does not follow that if the Prayer Book is to be enriched, the enrichments must necessarily come from such sources. Moreover ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... pine in the fire, and started one of the stable boys up a ladder by its light to ransack the pigeon-cote, and in a very little while both a chicken and a bird were broiled and set upon the kitchen-table upon a spotless cloth, and the plume of lily-white celery, and the smoking toast in velvet cream, warmed the Judge's nostrils, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... found in old trunks and bureaus, which have gathered dust for untold years in attics and storerooms. Opportunities to ransack old garrets are greatly appreciated by collectors, as the uncertainty of what may be found gives zest to their search. It was of such old treasure trove that the hangings were found to make what Harriet ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... the fallen man, fighting and cursing to be the first to ransack his pockets; while Philip, with his two companions, moved ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... stated that already a large gang of thieves and vampires have descended on and near the place. Their presumed purpose is to rob the dead and ransack ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... "give me a man's rig-out—a jersey and some breeches and a cap—quick," and, while the old fellow stared and whistled softly, I helped to ransack his box; and in a trice I had dressed myself, putting my pistols, my papers, and my money in my new clothes; but leaving everything else in ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... arguing, struggling and bargaining with a contentious company of porters. Alas! H. was not to be seen among them. There was still a chance; he might be one of the passengers who had got ashore before my coming down, and I was preparing to rush back to the city to ransack the hotels. Just then an internal convulsion shook the swarm around the luggage pile; out burst a little Gallego staggering under a huge British portmanteau, and followed by its much desired, and ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Duke of Nemours proceeded on his march; and as there was nothing left within fifty miles of Paris wherewith to support his famished troops, it may be imagined that he was forced to ransack the next fifty miles in order to maintain them. He did so. But the troops were not such as they should have been, considering the enemy with whom they had ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I get to it?"... I would ransack the phases of my development from the first shy unveiling of a hidden wonder to the last extremity as a man will go through muddled account books to ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... weeks to clear the old place out. The thing was necessary; yet I felt as if it were a kind of sacrilege. To disturb the old dust upon the library-shelves and select such books as I cared to keep; to sort and destroy all kinds of hoarded papers; to ransack desks that had never been unlocked since the hands that last closed them were laid to rest for ever, constituted my share of the work. Hortense superintended the rest. As for the household goods, we resolved to keep nothing, save a few old family portraits ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... of his there must be clues which will send him to the electric chair on former crimes: Warren is an artist who has handled other brushes than the ones he used on this masterpiece. He is not a beginner. So, I must ransack his apartment." ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... how pleased I am to see the face of an honest man. I am so tired of those devils of spies who come here ten times a day to ransack my pockets and my cell to satisfy themselves that I am not preparing to escape. The government is ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... would ransack the house at their leisure. There was light enough in the attics to explore the treasures hidden there. They found old coal-hods for helmets, and warming-pans for fiery steeds, and they had tournaments in the huge halls. They piled up ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... of Rossetti amidst these environments which aptly illustrates almost every trait of his character: his impetuosity, and superstition especially. It was his daily habit to ransack old book-stalls, and carry off to his studio whatever treasures he unearthed, but when, upon further investigation, he found he had been deceived as to the value of a book that at first looked promising, he usually revenged himself by throwing the volume through a window into the river running ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... Cat replied, "I do not lack, Though with but one provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better." In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. "Now," said the Cat, "your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine." With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The Fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... I'll lend you my white silk for evenings." And my sister, who was always good-natured, carried me off to ransack her wardrobe. ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... time to part them.— He's simple and tells much. [To FLORIZEL.] How now, fair shepherd! Your heart is full of something that does take Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young And handed love as you do, I was wont To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it To her acceptance; you have let him go, And nothing marted with him. If your lass Interpretation should abuse, and call this Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited For ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... happiness Spread abroad till it grew a joy Universal—It even reached And thrilled the town till the Church was stirred Into suspecting that wrong was wrong!— And it stayed awake as the preacher preached A Real "Love"-text that he had not long To ransack for ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... and I'll ransack the city till I find some," cried Belle, growing more resolute with ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... wakes to-morrow and finds it gone—what then? You know this Governor of Cesena well enough to be assured that he would ransack the castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until the missive ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... meantime, as I stood in the dark garden, watching the girl ransack the private papers of her dead host, I felt no fear of her finding what she was looking for. Lord Ashiel had convinced me that he would hide his secret affairs more carefully than that; and, as I expected, the time came when she gave up the search and departed the way she had come. And that way, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... extraordinary effect was produced on two of them, for they fell down on the deck, and rolled about as if in intense agony. This drew the attention of all hands on them; and as we had no surgeon on board, the captain began to ransack his medical knowledge ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mannheim and Leyden to draw up plans and a particular description of the Oxford Physic Garden, by Magdalen College, as well as the plantations of Worcester, Trinity and St. John's Colleges; and to ransack the bookshops of that seat of learning for such works as might be procurable in no more difficult tongue than the Latin. In this way Captain Barker became possessed of a vast number of monkish herbals, Pliny's Historia Naturalis, the Herbarum ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... old mother gets no help, and meanwhile the peasants storm her house, and search and ransack every corner for proofs of her witchcraft, but nothing can be found. Stay! there in the cellar sits a woman, who will ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... me somewhat oftener to my library. It is in the chief approach to my house, so that under my eyes are my garden, my base-court, my yard, and even the best rooms of my house. There, without order or method, I can turn over and ransack now one book and now another. Sometimes I muse, sometimes save; and walking up and down I indite and register these my humours, these my conceits. It is placed in a third storey of a tower. The lowermost is my chapel, the second a chamber, where I often lie when I would be alone. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... July, 1793." An unlucky town for me! Fernand was actually born seven months after my marriage, by one of those fatalities that give ground for shameful accusations! I shall ask my aunt to carry the certificate in her pocket, until I can deposit it in some place of safety. The duke would ransack my rooms for it, and the whole police are at his service. Government refuses nothing to a man high in favor. If Joseph saw me going to Mademoiselle de Vaudrey's apartments at this hour, the whole house would hear of it. Ah—I am alone in the world, alone ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, the obscure recesses of northern learning which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with which I expected every search into those neglected mines to reward my labor, and the triumph with which I should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus inquired into the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attention to things; to pierce ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... refreshments, after the immense fatigue they had all undergone in exploring the beauties of the surrounding country. Most of the party were of the same opinion, so forthwith he and Bob Mornington proceeded to ransack the hampers, and distributed the contents in the most primitive manner imaginable, to the amusement of the company generally, and to the extreme disgust of Grace Arlington in particular. And then there ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... them of me. I denied all knowledge. Then they ransacked this house—I think they ransack it daily, but I am too clever for them. I am not allowed to go beyond the verandah, and when at first I disobeyed there was always one of them in wait to force me back with a pistol behind my head. Every morning Leon brings ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Rousseau having equipped him for the study of human society and government, he now, during his first sojourn at Auxonne (June, 1788—September, 1789), proceeds to ransack the records of the ancient and modern world. Despite ill-health, family troubles, and the outbreak of the French Revolution, he grapples with this portentous task. The history, geography, religion, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... as a field for the Parsons Commission only the Midland Counties and Connaught. Of these they made the most in the shortest space of time. A horde of clerkly spies were employed under the name of "Discoverers," to ransack old Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with such good success, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's and Queen's Counties, were "found by inquisition to be vested in the Crown." The means ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... and an envelope. Next she hired a typewriter and carried it with her back to the house. She was working for an hour before she had the letter finished. The signature took her some time. She had to ransack Lydia's writing case before she found a letter from Jack Glover—Lydia's signature was ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... the goodnesses of the great shows that we are at least lovers of virtue—that we may ourselves be aspiring to reach her serene abodes. But to dwell on their faults, and still more to ransack that we may record them, that is the low industry of envy, which, grown into a habit, becomes malice, at once hardening and embittering the heart. Such, beyond all doubt, in the case of our great poet, was the source of many "a malignant truth and lie," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better.' In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. 'Now,' said the cat, 'your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine.' With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found. A hundred ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... with that leprosy of lust, Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men Making them ransack to the very last The dregs of pleasure for their ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... distraught ambition compasses, And is encompassed, while as craft deceives, And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: He looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth |
