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Literary notes about Topple (AI summary)

The term "topple" is employed with versatile dynamism in literature, functioning both in its literal sense and as a potent metaphor for decline or collapse. At times, it vividly depicts physical imbalance—a precarious chair on the brink of falling ([1]), a rickety wheel threatening to give way ([2]), or even an entire structure at risk during a storm ([3], [4]). In other instances, the word transcends the tangible, symbolizing the downfall of status or order; a figure may be toppled from a high position by misfortune ([5]), or institutions and ideals might be described as tumbling into ruin ([6], [7]). Even in poetic language, such as in Shakespearean turns of phrase, "topple" conjures images of both physical and mental disintegration ([8], [9]). Thus, the word richly conveys an impending loss of stability, whether tracking particles of chaos or the collapse of grand systems.
  1. [Pg 21] CHAPTER II A CLASS MEETING Polly was standing on a chair which threatened every minute to topple from its precarious position on her bed.
    — from Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School by Dorothy Whitehill
  2. The rickety old wheel, weather-beaten and sad, rose above them and threatened to topple over if they so much as touched its flimsy supports.
    — from The Hollow of Her Hand by George Barr McCutcheon
  3. It's blowing hard enough to topple us all over this very moment."
    — from The Old Willow Tree, and Other Stories by Carl Ewald
  4. The aged building seemed to creak and sway in the wind, as though it might fall apart from weakness and topple into the water.
    — from The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill by Ruel Perley Smith
  5. He only needed a great misfortune to topple him from the high position he held in the world of intellectual excellence, and it came.
    — from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
  6. It will be the lever with which we shall topple the grafting government of Cassylia."
    — from The Ethical Engineer by Harry Harrison
  7. If that ideal did not—and his intelligence insisted that he could not—survive the reality, then his house was built on sand and must topple.
    — from The Hidden Places by Bertrand W. Sinclair
  8. I’ll look no more; Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong.
    — from The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare
  9. I’ll look no more; Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong. — King Lear.
    — from The Crest of the Continent: A Summer's Ramble in the Rocky Mountains and Beyond by Ernest Ingersoll

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