"Blow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell them in one quick sentence and get it over with. He couldn't, any more than he could force himself to squeeze the trigger of a pistol he knew would blow up in his hand. ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper
... barbarian invasions; so many cities of refuge from violence and rapine, where the few who thirsted after righteousness and burned with charity might find shelter and protection. "Every letter traced on paper," said an old abbot, "is a blow to the devil." The ecclesiastical and monastic schools took the place of the destroyed Roman day-schools, and whatever modicum of learning the Frankish courts could boast of, was due to the monks and nuns of their time; ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... were quiet as old Jan took his place beside the tree, and there was a touch of solemnity in his manner as he swung his heavy axe and gave the first strong blow—that sent a shiver through all the branches, as though the tree realized that death had overtaken it at last. When he had slashed a dozen times into the trunk, making a deep gash in the pale red wood beneath the brown bark, he handed the axe to Marius; ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... are of United States authority and making." Persons resisting these laws must be indicted for high treason. If no resistance has been made, but combinations formed for the purpose of resisting them, "then must you still find bills for constructive treason, as the courts have decided that the blow need not be struck, but only the intention be made evident." [Footnote: J. H. Gihon, "Governor Geary's Administration," p. 77; also compare two copies of the indictments, printed at full length in Phillips, "Conquest of Kansas," pp. 351-4.] Indictments, writs, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Opposite the orb, a huge pile of vapour rises in shadowy forms, on which the light is thrown, producing the most wonderful effects. In these chromatic displays, red is the colour that predominates. Towards midnight, the wind begins to blow from the east, at first gently, but icy cold, for it comes from the regions of perpetual frost and snow. The radiation of heat from such an extensive and almost glowing surface is naturally very great and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... very moment it is dragged, all stained and livid, through the dust or in the mud. Oh, God! if my prayers may still avail for him, withdraw him speedily from those frightful conflicts, where every blow falls upon a father, a son, a brother, or a husband. Pity the many tears that flow for ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... oleo-butter. The older woman was nothing loath to talk, and confirmed the girl's suspicion that Stefan had taken that young woman to Hugo's. Mrs. Olsen insisted on the fact that her visitor was a real pretty girl, though awfully thin and looking as if a breath would blow her over. She also commented on the lack of suitable clothing for such dreadful weather, and on the utter ignorance Madge seemed to display of anything connected with Carcajou or, in fact, any part of Ontario. When questioned, cautiously, she admitted that she ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... a crick in the neck too, keeping it bent so long, and, after all, the people in the carriage were so much more interesting than the people in the stories. If she could hold her head out of the window a little while and blow away the last signs of weeping, she would be able, she thought, to look about her. She threw aside her magazine, took off her hat, and, lowering her window, thrust her head out. The sun turned her red hair to a golden radiance about her; the wind, catching ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... knowing what has happened, it can't be kept from her long," said Mrs. Hackbutt. "The Vincys know, for Mr. Vincy was at the meeting. It will he a great blow to him. There is his daughter as well as ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... great building had been held to be safe beyond a doubt; it may have been merely that these men had for nearly twelve hours been achieving and repeating the impossible, the heroic, and that this last blow had been more than they could bear. Their faces were gray beneath the smoke and grime, their eyes stung and smarted almost unendurably from the heat and smoke and their long vigil; and now for the first time since this whirling maelstrom had engulfed them, they were ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... boots. Lackadaisical gentlemen had better emigrate to fool's-land, where men get their living by wearing shiny boots and lavender gloves. When bars of iron melt under the south wind, when you can dig the fields with toothpicks, blow ships along with fans, manure the crops with lavender-water, and grow plum-cakes in flower-pots, then will be a fine time for dandies; but until the millennium comes we shall all have a deal to put up with, and had better bear our present burdens than run helter-skelter where we shall ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... suffer, in order to perform this bloody act of worship, are never apprised of their fate, till the blow is given that puts an end to their existence. Whenever any one of the great chiefs thinks a human sacrifice necessary, on any particular emergency, he pitches upon the victim. Some of his trusty servants are then sent, who fall upon him suddenly, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the boys whipping the slave girl with a cowhide. Whenever she turned her face to him he would hit her across the face either with the butt end or small end of the whip to make her turn around square to the lash, in order that he might get a fair blow at her. A Mr. Say had noticed several wounds on her person, chiefly bruises. Capt. Porter, the keeper of the workhouse, thought the injuries on Milly's person were very bad, some of them appeared to be burns, and some were bruises or stripes from a cowhide whip. The trial was held amidst ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... blow after blow with his clubbed rifle on the would-be assassins, and they went down like ninepins; then, turning to where the crew were fighting, he saw to his delight that they had driven the foe back over the bulwarks, while the deck lay covered with damaged rebels. Naoum's men had fought ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... caught by a breeze and taken up higher than the trees. Round and round he was twirled till he was so dizzy he thought he must perish. "Don't blow me so? Wind," ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... to my old aunt's, my nearest relative. I wanted to ask her to invite the whole of the Darbois family to spend a month here at Montjoie. A letter from Count Albert, announcing his engagement to Esperance, was a terrible blow to me. I conceived the detestable idea of revenging myself on Albert, but every scheme went against me. I have been beaten without ever having fought." Then ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... lived; he probably never knew himself. The American picked him up and found that he had money. For reasons of his own, he professed to take care of him. He must have come on some clue just when he heard of his new fortune. He was naturally panic-stricken; it must have been a big blow at that particular moment. He was sharp enough to see what it might mean, and held on to the poor chap like grim death, and has been ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the hatchet quickly to peel off the bark and shape the wood. But as he was about to give it the first blow, he stood still with arm uplifted, for he had heard a wee, little voice say in a beseeching tone: "Please be careful! Do not ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... had a blow, for the cause is a common (one). This surrender of Lord Cornwallis (178) seems to have put le comble a nos disgraces. What has been said about it, either at White's or parmi les Grenouilles at Brooks's, I know not.(179) ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... long, by pandering to their prejudice, aided them in their object. They recognize America as the stronghold of republicanism. If they can bring it into disrepute here, they know that they inflict upon it the deadliest blow ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... French, hesitating. "I believe the whole thing was a great blow to him. He was never passionately in love with her, but he was very fond of her in his own way—increasingly fond of her—up to that miserable autumn at Heston. However, after the decree, his one thought was for Beatty. His whole soul has been wrapped ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brand as that of everybody round about, and all the time I had to do unnatural things. It isn't easy to be going down town to business and taking cocktails with Mr Carl Rosenheim, and next hour being engaged trying to blow Mr Rosenheim's friends sky—high. And it isn't easy to keep up a part which is clean outside your ordinary life. I've never tried that. My line has always been to keep my normal personality. But you have, Major, and I guess you ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... to the Duchess of his anxiety and uncertainty about Donal. Anxiety was increasing on every side and such of the unthinking multitude as had at last ceased to believe that one magnificent English blow would rid the earth of Germany, had begun to lean towards belief in a vision of German millions adding themselves each day to other millions advancing upon France, Belgium, England itself, a grey encroaching mass rolling ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he saw that it was of silver. Then there returned on him and Philip the words they had heard two days before, of silver bullets forged for the destruction of the white moonlight fairy, and he further remembered the moment's shock and blow that in the midst of his wild amaze on the river's bank had made him gather his breath and strength to bound desperately upwards, lest the next moment he should find ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Charles as King of France. His price was high, yet it was worth all that was given; for, after all, he was of the French blood royal, and not a foreigner. The death of Bedford, which took place about the same time, was almost a more terrible blow to the fortunes of the English. Paris opened her gates to her King in April, 1436; the long war kept on with slight movements now and then ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... the final blow fell upon them. They dined late in the Lincoln Inn Fields. It was as much as six o'clock and they were still at table—as jovial as usual. The butler came to Alison with an elaborate whispering. "Pray him come up," she said aloud, and looked defiance down the table at ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... approved, putting a rod on the head of the slave, pronounced,—"I say that this man is free, after the manner of the Romans." Wherefore, the lictor or master turning him round in a circle, and giving him a blow on the cheek, let him go; signifying that leave was granted him to go, wherever he pleased. 3d, Per testamentum, when a master gave his slaves their liberty by ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... their own quality, projecting in different directions from around their base, and entering the ground in the manner of roots, presented themselves to the mind of an observer, with a striking resemblance to the stumps and roots of small trees. These were extremely brittle, the slightest blow with a stick, or with each other, being sufficient to break them short off; and when taken into the hand, many of them broke to pieces with their ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... could be discarded, it would not be missed; but while the mind, for want of a better vocabulary, is reduced to using these symbols, it pours into them a part of its own life and makes them beautiful. Their loss is a real blow, while the incapacity that called for them endures; and the soul seems to be crippled by ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... felt it very keenly. He was furious when the first news arrived, and refused to believe you were to blame. Then, when Major Allardyce wrote, he scarcely spoke for the rest of the day, and it was a long time before he recovered from the blow; I was staying at Sandymere. He loved you, Dick, and I imagined he expected you to do ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... to the three points of condemnation against Christ, at the High Priest's Caiphas, Herod, and Pilate. It was from the last that he was led to that most violent and excruciating death. The said three blows with the square, gauge, and gavel are symbols of the blow on the cheek, the flagellation, and the crown of thorns. The brethren assembled around the tomb of Hiram, is a representation of the disciples lamenting the death of Christ on the cross. The Master's word, which is said to be lost, since the death of Hiram Abiff, is the same that Christ pronounced ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... is a lighted fuse," Emily Bogarth said, her cold eyes hard on her operator, "that could blow the Humanist movement sky-high. I want you to snuff out that fuse." She squeezed a forefinger ...
— The Deadly Daughters • Winston K. Marks
... relatives and friends of the deceased charged John Brown and his band with these murders, which the relatives and friends of Brown persistently denied. His latest biographer, however, unreservedly admits his guilt: "For some reason he [John Brown] chose not to strike a blow himself; and this is what Salmon Brown meant when he declared that his father 'was not a participator in the deed.' It was a very narrow interpretation of the word 'participator' which would permit such a denial; but it was no doubt honestly made, although for the purpose ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... to Bates. All the morning he had not dared to face such a possibility and now to have the question hurled at him with such imperative force by another was like a terrible blow. But when a blow is thus dealt from the outside, a man like Bates rallies all the opposition of his nature ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... engaged in than the utmost support which could be afforded to us by any other person; and that we cannot consider the terms he has used respecting us otherwise than as a misfortune to be profoundly regretted, and a blow which might seriously impair our power ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... stolen by a deserter from Chusan, will be formally insulted to-morrow in the market-place, by the emperor and his court. Dust will be thrown at it, accompanied by derisive grimaces, and it will be subsequently hoisted, in scorn, to blow, at the mercy of the winds, upon the summit of the palace, within sight ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... with this desire, when after a short illness Miss Hoffman died, in the eighteenth year of her age. Without being a dazzling beauty, she was lovely in person and mind, with most engaging manners, a refined sensibility, and a delicate and playful humor. The loss was a crushing blow to Irving, from the effects of which he never recovered, although time softened the bitterness of his grief into a tender and sacred memory. He could never bear to hear her name spoken even by his most intimate friends, or any ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... instinctive desire of conquest, the delight in opposition, if not too prolonged, the love of battle, the hope of victory; and to Ahmed, the invariably successful lover, the resistance of this slight, rose-leaf creature he could crush with one blow of his hand roused suddenly all the primitive joy of the chase, the excitement of pursuit. Only, where with some natures it would have been brutal and rapid, the end and triumph assured, the prize the body; here it would be gentle and dexterous, the end dependent on another, the prize the soul—the ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... asked little Elsie, as she fastened the gate behind us. Phil looked up and down the alley in an uncertain way, and then said, "When the princes in the fairy tales start out into the wide world to make their fortunes, they blow a leather up into the ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... A sharp blow just then would have fixed us, and that's a fact. Mr. Rudd and his helpers went below and broke out enough cargo to get at the hole stove in her side. Meanwhile we had to keep the pump brakes moving and the water that flowed from the pipes and out at the hawser-holes was as clear as the sea itself. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... lords, in a nation where the effects of strong liquors have been for a long time too well known; we know that they produce, in almost every one, a high opinion of his own merit; that they blow the latent sparks of pride into flame, and, therefore, destroy all voluntary submission; they put an end to subordination, and raise every man to an equality with his master, or his governour. They repress all that awe by which men are restrained within the limits of their proper spheres, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... as of equal value and arranged mechanically like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle; and further, that no more than a provisional acceptance should be accorded any statement of the later native chronologists, until confirmed by contemporary records. On the other hand, the death-blow has been given to the principle of emendation of the figures, which for so long has found favour among a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... my fathers," said his Highness, as he placed the treasure with great reverence on the table, "won by fifty battles and lost without a blow! Yet in my youth I was deemed no dastard; and I have shed more blood for my country in one day than he who claims to be my suzerain in the whole of his long career of undeserved prosperity. Ay, this is the curse; the ancestor of my present sovereign was that warrior's ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... a doomed man! Unless he follows my instructions without question, without hesitation—before Heaven, nothing can save him! I do not know when the blow will fall, how it will fall, nor from whence, but I know that my first duty is to warn him. Let us walk down to the corner of the common and get ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... aching heart, Indulges secretly the hopeless wish For Life, and Peace.... Alas! it cannot be: To advance is to encounter dreadful danger; But to recede, inevitable death; His own associates would deal the blow: Thus led by Fate, behold upon the plain, The adverse bands in view, and in advance. Now Fear, Self-pity, and affected Courage, Speak in their hideous shouts with voice scarce human; Like that which issues from his hollow throat Who sleeping bellows in a frightful ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, kicked out the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging blow from ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... day, as I was in the midst of a game of Cat, and having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it the second time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into my soul, which said, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell? At ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... rode up to him, and, leaning from his horse, collared him. He was unarmed; but he was a powerful man, and wrenched himself free. The soldier drew his sword, and although Caillaud was close by, and attempted to parry the blow with a stick, the Major lay a dead man on the ground. The next moment, however, the soldier himself was dead—dead from a pistol-shot fired by Caillaud, who was instantly seized, handed over to a guard, and marched off with a score of others to Manchester jail. A remnant only of the Blanketeers ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... may be the last service we will have in Shearith Israel before the cursed British guns blow our roof about our ears," answered the older man. "Alas, Mr. Seixas, when you were elected our Rabbi but a year ago, I predicted a long and fruitful term of service for you in our midst. But now—" a ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... hysterical passion that impels tears is of terrible violence—a sort of throttling sensation—then succeeded by a state of dreaming stupidity, in which I ask if my poor Charlotte can actually be dead. I think I feel my loss more than at the first blow. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... boy's name is John. He is a very good boy." (b) "When the train passes you will hear the whistle blow." (c) "We are going to have a good time in ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... head up. Den I been-a-tink [think] Seceshkey hab guns too, and my head go down again. Den I bide in de bush till morning. Den I open my bundle, and take ole white shirt and tie him on ole pole and wave him, and ebry time de wind blow, I been-a-tremble, and drap down in de bushes,"—because, being between two fires, he doubted whether friend or foe would see his signal first. And so on, with a succession of tricks beyond Moliere, of acts of caution, foresight, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... attack would begin, and Owen remembered that the heron is armed with a beak on which a hawk might be speared, for is it not recorded that to defend himself the heron has raised his head and spitted the descending hawk, the force of the blow breaking the heron's neck and both birds ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... too tedious; but there would never be an end, if I attempt to say all that this melancholy subject will bear. I will conclude with humbly offering one proposal, which if it were put in practice, would blow up this destructive project at once. Let some skilful judicious pen draw up an advertisement to the ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... Calton, eagerly, recalling the evidence at the trial. "Another blow to your theory. The murderer was in ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... worth while. From his connection with the "Register," they supposed him to be only the agent and cover for a deeper man,—its proprietor; and at the latter only, therefore, had they struck. Nothing saved him from the blow, except the casual fact of his absence in another country, and their being ignorant of the route he had taken. This his friends alone knew, and where to reach him. They did so, at once, by a courier secretly despatched; and he, on learning what awaited him at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... try to capture Jeff Davis or blow up the Confederate Congress, or any other of the casual master strokes that may enter your wild head. Remember that we have given double hostages to the enemy. We have accepted their hospitality, and we have made ourselves their guests," Jack said, half ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... git out of your part of the hold-up that easy. Take your share, or I'll blow it into you," ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... Then the blow fell. Drew laid his hands on the collateral which he held for his loan to the Erie. In the twinkling of an eye his $3,000,000 in Erie bonds was converted into Erie stock, which he proceeded to dump in Wall Street. ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... winds blow coastward from the high interior; frequent blizzards form near the foot of the plateau; cyclonic storms form over the ocean and move clockwise along the coast; volcanism on Deception Island and isolated areas of West Antarctica; other seismic activity ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and similar bodies were anarchical on principle, and upheld the 'dissidence of Dissent' as a thing desirable in itself. But the defection of the Wesleyan Methodists was another matter. This was a blow to the Church of England as irreparable as the loss of Northern Europe to the Papacy. It finally upset the balance of parties in the Church, by detaching from it the larger number of the Evangelicals, particularly in the tradesman class. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... of being searched, as a condition precedent to permission to come or go like ordinary mortals. The right to read their newspaper across the breakfast cup was also denied them; the duty had to be performed In town, lest the wind should blow the local journal into the hands of the enemy and reveal—nothing at all. The position of the barrier guard ceased to be—if it ever were—a sinecure, and he was kept busy picking pockets, examining bills, perusing love-letters, written in all sorts of prose, and ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... over the railways on a fair basis, or to deprive the most thrifty and industrious classes of his fellow-countrymen of a large slice of their savings and investments. In either event, the new Government will have received a serious blow to its credit at the outset of ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... O Thou Just! Or I their force should know; And if Thou strike me into dust, My soul approves the blow. ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... example of its futility. The fact that the more responsible leaders in this country do not advocate violence, does not affect the ultimate issue. Whilst Bolshevism sets out to destroy Capitalism at a blow, Socialism prefers a more gradual process. It is the difference between clubbing a man on the head and bleeding ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... on the Strasburg road, near Mr. Young's buildings. A German by the name of Jacob Eisinberger, was leisurely walking along the road; he was almost unconscious of the approach of the storm; on looking around he saw the fence blow away, and immediately found himself in the whirl. He was carried along for about two hundred yards in an unconscious state, and was then left in an adjoining field, his jaw being broken, his shoulder blade fractured, and various minor ...
— A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa. • Richard Darlington
... and fruitless struggle followed; and, strange to say, a few months swept away from the face of the earth, not only the wealth, the commerce, the castles, and the liberty, but the philosophy and the Christianity of Alexandria; crushed to powder by one fearful blow, all that had been built up by Alexander and the Ptolemies, by Clement and the philosophers, and made void, to all appearance, nine hundred years of human toil. The people, having no real hold on ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... redskin on his return from on the hunting ground; but towards the stern stood a splendid Antinous-like young savage, leaning in an attitude of graceful negligence on his rifle, and evidently waiting an opportunity to get a blow or a shot at the stag. As soon as these children of the forest caught sight of the steamer and of Doughby's boat, they ceased rowing, only recommencing when encouraged by some loud hurras, and even then visibly taking care to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... a great increase in foreign trade. The crisis of 1873, possibly the severest in our history, followed great speculation, especially in the direction of railroad building on an unexampled scale after the war. The blow, when it fell, was intensified by the relative contraction of currency then in progress, leading to the return to a specie basis and lower prices.[5] The crisis of 1884, a comparatively slight one, occasioned (rather ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... by their friend; and in so doing, the one whose sword was held by the blade by Mr. Howell, drew it away roughly, and nearly cut his hand off, severing the nerves and muscles, and penetrating to the bone. The other, almost at the same instant, disengaged his sword, and aimed a blow at the head of his antagonist, which Mr. Howell observing, raised his wounded hand with the rapidity of thought, to prevent the blow. The sword fell on the back of his already wounded hand, and cut it severely. "It seemed," said Sir Kenelm Digby, "as if some unlucky star raged over them, that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... and perhaps at Springfield we should find the enemy. Surely if they did not oppose the passage they would blow up the bridge. Tiny patrols—beetles on a green baize carpet—scoured the plain, and before we reached the crease—scarcely perceptible at a mile's distance, in which the Little Tugela flows—word was brought that no Dutchmen were anywhere to be seen. Captain ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... over again to the offerer. Then when the turn of the offerer, whom we are watching, has come, he hands over the animal to the executioner, who fixes its neck within a forked or Y-shaped stick fixed fast in the ground. With one blow the animal's head is severed from its body. The bleeding head is carried off into the shrine to be laid before the image of the goddess, and become the temple perquisite. The decapitated body is carried ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... girls, though." If we find in our circle of poets a certain stateliness of style scarcely to be looked for in a somewhat new republic that might be expected to rush pell-mell after an idea and capture it by the sudden impact of a lusty blow, after the manner of the minute-men catching a red-coat at Lexington; if we observe in their writing old world expressions that woo us subtly, like the odor of lavender from a long-closed linen chest, we may attribute it to the fact that aristocratic old Charleston, though the first to assert her ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... hear my question?" thundered Obed. "What the deuce is the meaning of this, and who the deuce do you take me for? Don't move," he cried, seeing a faint movement of the agent's hand; "or I'll blow your brains out; I ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... didn't more than half like it, as I could tell by the turn of his hawse-holes when he came in at the door and me a-smokin'. Not as he said anything; for, ye see, I was an old man, and I daresay that kep him quiet. But I did hear him blow up a young chap i' the village he come upon promiscus with a pipe in his mouth. He did give him a thunderin' broadside, to be sure! So I was in two minds whether I ought to go on with ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... unfolded the story of the tragedy at the palace very guardedly and with great care, so that the blow should not fall too heavily upon Josiah. When she finally told them that the King and Queen were dead, the boys broke out in loud weeping. It was all she could do to comfort ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... After so long a drought!' 'Will a kind Providence our vessel whelm, With such a pious Pilot at the helm?' 'Or let the throats be cut of pretty sheep That care for nought but pasture rich and deep?' 'Were 't Evangelical of God to deal so foul a blow At people who hate Turks and Papists so?' 'What, make or keep A tax for ship and gun, When 'tis full three to one Yon bully but intends To beat our friends?' 'Let's put aside Our costly pride. Our appetite's ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... intention of dilating upon it. His wife's name he never mentioned, and no one could guess, heavily as the blow was known to have fallen upon him, the seething bitterness that her loss had left in his soul, nor imagine how different a man he might have been if that one strong affection of his life had been ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... of all the French mines, and had consequently got a good start at various points along the front before the French could begin again. The result was that practically all the French mines were defensive, and intended merely to try and blow the Germans, before they could get under our lines. No doubt each side knew almost exactly where the other side was working, and at what approximate time any particular mine would go up. These were all shewn to us on a plan, and carefully ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... the ruffians off the old man right and left. One of them struck him; he returned the blow; and, in an instant, promises and Argemone, philosophy and anti-game-law prejudices, were swept out of his head, and 'he went,' as the old romances say, 'hurling into the midst of the press,' as mere a wild animal for the moment as angry bull or ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... uneasy waves, for the squall appeared to be a surprise to him; but it proved to be more than a white squall, which may come out of a clear sky, while with a black one the sky is wholly or partly covered with dark clouds. It continued to blow very fresh, and the commotion in the elements amounted to nothing less than ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... March, 1870. When the jurors were drawn, a large number of women were selected, for both grand and petit jurors. As this was not done by the friends of woman suffrage, there was evidently an intention of making the whole subject odious and ridiculous, and giving it a death-blow at the outset. A great deal of feeling was excited among the people, and some effort made to prejudice the women against acting as jurors, and even threats, ridicule and abuse, in some cases, were indulged in. Their husbands were ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... this must necessarily have the effect of bringing up the children to the idea that deceiving by untruths is a justifiable resort in certain cases—a doctrine which, though entertained by many well-meaning persons, strikes a fatal blow at all confidence in the veracity of men; for whenever we know of any persons that they entertain this idea, it is never afterwards safe to trust in what they say, since we never can know that the case in hand is not, for some reason unknown to us, one of those which ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Bronte's, tempted the little fellow into the forbidden place. She followed, and tried to induce him to come away; but, instigated by his brother, he began throwing stones at her, and one of them hit her so severe a blow on the temple that the lads were alarmed into obedience. The next day, in full family conclave, the mother asked Miss Bronte what occasioned the mark on her forehead. She simply replied, "An accident, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of the enemy. If within range of artillery, it should be kept on the move from front to rear. Its strength should not be wasted or frittered away on doubtful enterprises, as it maybe required for some decisive blow, in pursuit, or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... modified temperature, and a flowing movement, as great inducements to leave the sea in early winter, instead of waiting until spring; and, in like manner, they avoid "imprisoned rivers" until icy gales have ceased to blow. The consequences are, we may have an extremely early river and a very late one within a few hundred yards of each other, and both debouching from the same line of coast into the sea. Now, in the autumn of 1836, a bill was proposed and brought ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... blow is aimed at the eye.[75] Instantly, and without our knowledge or will, and even against the will, the eyelids close. What is it that happens? A picture of the rapidly advancing fist is made upon the retina at the back of the eye. The retina changes this ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... upon his arm. She nodded. It was just that convulsive movement of her head, with its wealth of wonderful hair and its plain black motoring hat, which dealt the death-blow to his hopes. She was just a child once more—and ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... through the window crashed the caraffe of water in Mendoza's hand)—"a Town and Gown row is a novelty to me. The Town has the best of it, clearly, though: the men outnumber the lads. Ha, a good blow! How that tall townsman went down before yonder slim young fellow ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... - Blow up an entire mine field simultaneously in its entirety immediately after it had been laid. - Destroy the mine laden mine-laying vehicles at their loading point. - Destroy in real time terrorist training ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... again launched, and with cargoes aboard, the journey is resumed. On some of these trips the number of portages runs up into the scores. Great lakes have to be crossed where fierce storms at times rage, and where head-winds blow with such fury, that sometimes the ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... searching, flit across, and shiver as they pass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population—women in veils, men winter-mantled—pass to and fro between the buildings and the grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow retreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets beneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through the vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed castelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... man pivoted on his heel; his open hand caught Vahr just below the ear and knocked him sprawling. It must have been some kind of trick-blow. That or else the slim stranger was stronger than ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... could not have conquered the Median Empire at a single blow, if first that empire had not been utterly rotten; and next, if he and his handful of Persians had not been tempered and sharpened, by long hardihood, to ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... was a manly blow; The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant, And then thou ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... and sister remained together for a time at Mrs. Pipchin's, then went back to their home in London, where little Paul's life ebbed away, and his father's hopes were crushed by the blow. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... for her sense of honour in a bargain that this pathetic document remained unopened. Meanwhile she only prayed that the hours might pass and her fate be revealed. She could only rack her brains imagining some means by which the severity of the blow might ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... one day in one of these autumnal walks, as we gained the top of the hill by a broken road which skirts the heath and leads to the old bridge, the wind suddenly began to blow furiously. My darling, overwhelmed by it, caught hold of my leg and sheltered himself in the skirt of my coat. My dog, for his part, stiffening his four legs, with his tail between the hind ones and his ears waving in the wind, looked ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... swash—there go your fields and your stone bridge. Fit! Speck! And there's your old woman, her red handkerchief, and what your dealer will probably call 'the human interest,' all complete. Squirt the edges of your foliage in with a blow-pipe. Throw a cup of tea over the whole, and there's your haze. Call it 'The Golden Road,' or 'The Bath of Sunlight,' or 'Quiet Noon.' Then you'll probably get a criticism beginning, 'Few indeed have more intangibly detained upon canvas so poetic a quality of sentiment as this sterling ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... will, sir," replied Edward. "I should indeed like to strike one blow for the king, come ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... claim was valid. Peter is shut up in prison and delivered once, at the very last moment, when hope was almost dead, in order that he might understand that when he was put into another prison and not delivered, the blow of martyrdom fell upon him, not because of the strength of his persecutors, but because of the will of his Lord. And John had to see his brother James, to whom he had been so closely knit, with whom he had pledged himself to drink the cup that Christ drank of, whom he had desired ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... August winds blow from the west, carrying sand and dust across the country, which can ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Trade wind, blow! Send the mighty billows flashing In the radiant sunlight, dashing O'er the reef, like thunder crashing, Blow thou brave old Trade ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... is that all. You must know that when he wishes to blow his nose, he takes from his pocket a piece of linen, called a handkerchief, and blows ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... understands. Consequently for some children discipline is an indispensable means of enforcing the practice of certain habits. For other children, the stricter methods are entirely unnecessary even at this early age, and as soon as the child can remember a blow, he is too old ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... this hypothesis, apparently gratuitous, of strokes of the sting given at random? Are there any facts which render this explanation plausible? Assuredly. Thus the Bembex, which especially attacks Diptera to make them the prey of its larvae, throws itself suddenly on them and kills them with one blow in any part of the body. It is unable in this way to amass in advance sufficient provision for its larvae; the corpses would putrefy. It is obliged to return from time to time bearing new pasture.[9] Again, M. Paul Marchal, taking up the study of instinct in the ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... point for attack. How to reach and smash it was the next question—and soon answered. Taking off my shoes, I threw one with great force at my glass target and succeeded in striking it a destructive blow. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... heart—I mean, the heart kept tender—preserves from many a blow, lash, and fatherly chastisement; because it shuns the causes, which is sin, of the scourging hand of God. 'With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure, but with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
