The disciplined armies always kept on foot on the continent of Europe, though they bear a malignant aspect to liberty and economy, have, notwithstanding, been productive of the signal advantage of rendering sudden conquests impracticable, and of preventing that rapid
desolation which used to mark the progress of war prior to their introduction.
They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in flames, when many of their citizens were bleeding, and when the progress of hostility and
desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and wellbalanced government for a free people.
And if not, how is he to be prevented from carrying
desolation into the ranks of his comrades?
It was thus, with no rising sense of the adventurous, but in mere
desolation and despair, that he turned his back on his native city, and set out on foot for California, with a more immediate eye to Glasgow.
The Brahmin legends assert that this city is built on the site of the ancient Casi, which, like Mahomet's tomb, was once suspended between heaven and earth; though the Benares of to-day, which the Orientalists call the Athens of India, stands quite unpoetically on the solid earth, Passepartout caught glimpses of its brick houses and clay huts, giving an aspect of
desolation to the place, as the train entered it.
In the morning I would gather some provisions in the dingey, and after setting fire to the pyre before me, push out into the
desolation of the high sea once more.
I cannot convey the sense of abominable
desolation that hung over the world.
As the water spread the weed followed them, until the ruined villas of the Thames valley were for a time lost in this red swamp, whose margin I explored, and much of the
desolation the Martians had caused was concealed.
And if, as I said, it was necessary that the people of Israel should be captive so as to make manifest the ability of Moses; that the Persians should be oppressed by the Medes so as to discover the greatness of the soul of Cyrus; and that the Athenians should be dispersed to illustrate the capabilities of Theseus: then at the present time, in order to discover the virtue of an Italian spirit, it was necessary that Italy should be reduced to the extremity that she is now in, that she should be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, more scattered than the Athenians; without head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, overrun; and to have endured every kind of
desolation.
But you must be careful of yourself, dearest; you MUST look after yourself better; you MUST avoid all risks, lest you plunge your friends into
desolation and despair.
For several successive evenings the cattle assembled round the smouldering ruins, as if in anxious expectation of the return of their masters, while all night long the faithful watchdogs of the Neutrals howled over the scene of
desolation, and mourned alike the hand that had fed, and the house that had sheltered them.
For several days he was incessantly devising schemes of vengeance, and endeavoring to set on foot an expedition that should carry dismay and
desolation into the Blackfeet town.
Delafield declares it to be a subject that she never dares to approach, nor in her repeated refusals of matrimonial offers has Charlotte ever been known to allude to the
desolation of her own heart.
There was beauty as well as terror in the sight, and Edwards and Elizabeth stood viewing the progress of the
desolation, with a strange mixture of horror and interest.
They had been accustomed to each other's appearance, and to the gradual operation of hunger and hardship upon their frames, but the change in the looks of these men, since last they parted, was a type of the famine and
desolation of the land; and they now began to indulge the horrible presentiment that they would all starve together, or be reduced to the direful alternative of casting lots!