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Whirl   Listen
noun
Whirl  n.  
1.
A turning with rapidity or velocity; rapid rotation or circumvolution; quick gyration; rapid or confusing motion; as, the whirl of a top; the whirl of a wheel. "In no breathless whirl." "The rapid... whirl of things here below interrupt not the inviolable rest and calmness of the noble beings above."
2.
Anything that moves with a whirling motion. "He saw Falmouth under gray, iron skies, and whirls of March dust."
3.
A revolving hook used in twisting, as the hooked spindle of a rope machine, to which the threads to be twisted are attached.
4.
(Bot. & Zool.) A whorl. See Whorl.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Whirl" Quotes from Famous Books



... stormy winter drives us from the green, Nor leaves a flower to decorate the scene; The winds arise—with sweep impetuous blow, And whirl around the flakes of fleecy snow; Yet shall imagination fondly rise And gather fair ideas as she flies: The images that blooming spring pourtrays, The sweets that bask in summer's sultry rays, The rich and varied fruits of autumn's reign Shall ope their treasures, in ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... mother joined us, long rambles through the woods and meadows which we took alone, little dinners at the numberless shore resorts, all these made a whirl of enjoyment for me unlike anything I had ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... powder in yon fire! Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. E'en as I melt, not uninspired, the wax, May Mindian Delphis melt this hour with love: And, swiftly as this brazen wheel whirls round, May Aphrodite whirl him to my door. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Next burn the husks. Hell's adamantine floor And aught that else stands firm can Artemis move. Thestylis, the hounds bay up and down the town: The goddess stands i' the crossroads: sound the gongs. ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... whirl of London's traffic raises its mighty voice; nearer still, the passing tramcars thunder along, and the silence of the waiting crowd is made ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... Yorker all the way through," the lad continued, "and I want to feel that I'm right in the whirl of things, where there is so much to do that you can't crowd it into a day, where the fun is at the same speed as the work. No backwaters for me, I want to be right out in the center. I don't say that I'm going to win, but I want to be a game sport and try my ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... At last there was nothing to the west of us but a bank of surging fog, the tumultuous advance and ascent of cloudy haze. The distant cliff had receded farther and farther, had loomed and changed through the whirl, and foundered and vanished at last ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... strange paradox men are taught by monotony as well as by newness. Ours is a world where the words, "Blessed be drudgery," are full of meaning. Culture and character come not through consuming excitements nor the whirl of pleasures. The granary is filled, not by the thunderous forces that appeal to the eye and ear, but by the secret, invisible agents; the silent energies, the mighty monarchs hidden in roots and in seeds. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... passed, after Varick got back to town and into the whirl of city life, he recalled his dream, frequently at first, then more rarely, and finally not at all. It was almost a year later when, one night, lying half awake, he saw again the fine, transparent, screen- like veil enshroud the objects in his bedroom. It ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... and my strength is still entire; 295 I cannot mount. No. Rather thus, on foot, I will advance against them. Fear and dread Are not for me; Pallas forbids the thought. One falls, be sure; swift as they are, the steeds That whirl them on, shall never rescue both. 300 But hear my bidding, and hold fast the word. Should all-wise Pallas grant me my desire To slay them both, drive not my coursers hence, But hook the reins, and seizing quick the pair ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... patch of the heavens disclosed above them. The birds are silent save the jackdaws and the robin, who still sings his recollections of the summer, or his anticipations of the spring, or perhaps his pleasure in the late autumn. The finches are in flocks, and whirl round in the air with graceful, shell-like convolutions as they descend, part separating, for no reason apparently, and forming a second flock which goes away over the copse. There is hardly any farm-work going on, excepting in the ditches, which are being cleaned in readiness for the overflow ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... wonderest, sweet sprig, at me, A man so hideous to see: Deep wounds but rarely mend the face, The crippling blow gives little grace. The arrow-drift o'ertook me, girl,— A fine-ground arrow in the whirl Went through me, and I feel the dart Sits, lovely girl, too near ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... float, wings outspread and eyes half closed, on one of those tranquil air-plateaux that lie between drifting air-currents. She was an adept, apparently, at finding the little nodule of quiet space that forms the center of every windstorm. Standing upright in it, flaming wings erect, she would whirl through space like an autumn leaf. Gradually, she became less suspicious of the other men. She often passed in their direction on the way to her ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... and, standing on the moon-whitened road, she had watched the white dust whirl about ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... despondency Ned's thoughts changed to ecstatic hope. He swung round, his hand in Nellie's, his brain in a whirl. Was it a dream or was she really standing there in the strong moonshine, her lovelit eyes looking into his for a moment before the down-cast lids veiled them, her face flushed, her bosom heaving, her hand ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... much he enjoyed his regiment and explained laboriously how Claire was to think of his future, which was to be, apparently, a whirl of pleasure ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... but Latona collected together the bent bow and the arrows[689] which had fallen here and there amid the whirl of dust. She, having taken the arrows, followed her daughter. But the daughter had arrived at Olympus, and at the brazen-floored palace of Jove, and had sat down at the knees of her father, weeping, whilst her ambrosial robe trembled around; and her the Saturnian father ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... "Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither, Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me, Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-poss'd soul, eludes not, One's self must never give way—that is the ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... in a whirl of confused emotions. His vanity was satisfied, his selfesteem was no longer bleeding, he had attained his ends and possessed this woman. Moreover, her spell over him had lost its force. He was ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... at the Haymarket, and as they walked down the street Fenwick found himself in the midst of the evening whirl of the West End. The clubs were at their busiest; men passed them in dress-suits and overcoats like themselves, and the street was full of hansoms, whence the faces of well-dressed women, enveloped in soft ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... spent the remainder of the evening on the front porch, watching the deep river, the hoary mountains, the starry sky, and listening to the hum of insects, the whirl of waters and the singing of the summer breeze through the pines that clothed the precipice, and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... whirl of thoughts which swept through the mind of Franklin during the interval would be impossible. He saw that a simple act of carelessness had been committed by Caroline; but he was enough of a lawyer to perceive that the proof against her was singularly striking and unanswerable—and he knew the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... few steamboat owners berated us roundly. We heeded none of them, but made our way through the mob, up the pier. Before we reached the street, it suddenly occurred to me that I had left the Splash made fast to the stern of the steamer. I had forgotten her in the exciting whirl of events. When I told Bob Hale and Tom Rush that I must return for my boat, they ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... "Please stay in bliss awhile. It is repose, it is refreshment. Isabella drags one into the company of her heroes, and then one feels completely ashamed not to be on more familiar terms with them all. Her Mazzinis, her Tancreds, heroes false and true,—it makes no difference to her,—put one into a whirl between history and story. What a row she would make in Italy, if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... to whirl in the air Little Mok was lying quietly on his bed, his great eyes looking wistfully up at Lightfoot, who in vain taxed her limited skill and resources to tempt him to eat and become more sturdy. She hovered over him ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... into the sunshine, his head in a whirl. Waldstricker's promises unfolded visions of ease and success surpassing in splendor his wildest dreams. He had not meant to betray Tessibel nor to deceive Madelene. Yet since these things were forced upon him, he would see ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... would follow her about, sing to her, parade himself, and show off; then she coquetted, and charmed him with her bewitching and altogether indescribable call, "sw-e-e-t." Then they were off in a whirl of excitement together, flitting hither and thither, singing and dancing through the air, life ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... the latter turns to aim; there is a sudden flash and report, and the Sioux throws up his hands with one yell and tumbles headlong. Then a mist seems rising before the young soldier's eyes, the earth begins to reel and swim and whirl, and then all grows dark, and he, too, ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... service of his father, mother, and sisters for the rest of the day. He loved the calm, quiet country; he loved the monotonous flow of time, when each day is like the other; and, after the excitement of Oxford, the secluded parsonage was like a haven beyond the tossing of the waves. The whirl of opinions and perplexities which had encircled him at Oxford now were like the distant sound of the ocean—they reminded him of his present security. The undulating meadows, the green lanes, the open heath, the common with its wide-spreading dusky elms, the ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... of thinking. Lottie had found Hemstead more interesting than she had expected, and had foolishly and recklessly permitted a mere sentiment for him to develop, which, in her case, would end with the visit, and soon be forgotten in the mad whirl of New York gayety. "But with Mr. Hemstead," concluded Bel, "it will be a very different affair. He is one of the kind that will brood over such a disappointment and wrong to ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... know I am brave in opposing the wrong; I could stand where the battle was fiercest, nor feel One quiver of nerve at the flash of the steel; I could gaze on the enemy guiltless of fears, But I quail at the sight of your passionate tears: My calmness forsakes me,—my thoughts are a-whirl, And the stout-hearted man is as weak as a girl. I've been proud of your fortitude; never a trace Of yielding, all day, could I read in your face; But a look that was resolute, dauntless and high, As ever flashed forth from a patriot's eye. I know ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston

... a whirl to lose scent at the stream, and my rescuer headed our horse away from the rabble, doffing his beaver familiarly to ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... numerous that often their notes mingled with one another, wreaths of leaves, successive guards of honor who joined her, composed of the Royal Guard of Italy, at nearly every parting station. As a letter in the Moniteur says, "Enthusiasm succeeded to fear, the whirl of festivities to the lamentation of battle; all that had been said of the Empress's benevolence seemed still to make part of her suite, and it was as if the Angel of Peace had come to ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... Campania, had burst over the great city at last. It was Jove's turn now to make a noise with his thunder, to utter cries and howls of vengeance and of death through the medium of his storm, and to drown the fury of men in the whirl of his own. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... drifted gently away, and in their wake followed an awkward silence. The logs were hissing in the fire. I could hear the clock in the hall outside, and the beating of the vines against the window panes. It was no sound, certainly, that made me whirl around to look behind me,—some instinct—that was all. There was Brutus, not two feet from my back, with my father's cloak over his right arm, and my father's sword held in his ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... at the first lecture I ever attended, and it struck my infant intelligence that they ought to be preserved. And I too might be a poet if I lived in the country, in constant communion with Nature, abandoning my soul to her maternal caress. But alas, the stir, the scramble, the mad whirl of city life, the debasing contact with low material minds, the daily study of Prices Current, make even of me a muckworm. Still, I might work up a brook or two after I get to the woods, or expatiate on a seven-pound trout: ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... throne of a Protestant prince, and he the leader and champion of the hated Huguenots. Nor did Henry secure without a struggle the crown that was his by right. The Catholics declared for Cardinal Bourbon, an uncle of the king of Navarre, and France was thus kept in the whirl of civil war. Elizabeth of England aided the Protestants, and Philip II. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... so taken up then with my second marriage. I was in such a whirl that I had no thoughts to spare for letters. . . . But you were an outsider, you had no antipathy for Sofya. . . why didn't you give her a helping ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... was Nugget. The dizzy whirl of the current and the jolting motion of the waves so terrified him that he dropped his paddle and clutched the combing with both hands. Then, as the bushes directly ahead caught his eye, he threw up his arms ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... was assured, "very happy." She seemed pleased and contented enough, even if she developed, I thought, a sort of an inward look about her. She and I never discussed our—uh—people. We had a fast whirl for a couple of weeks. And then I'd quit my job with Uncle John, and we sort of ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart

... There is no need to go into the psychology of the matter. It may have been numbness; it may have been temporary insanity caused by the excitement of the battle he had witnessed, for his brain was in a whirl; or Mr. Bixby may have hypnotized him. As they walked through the silent streets toward the Opera House, he listened perforce to Mr. Bixby's comments upon some of the innumerable details which Jethro had planned and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... and taking in every item of the wondrous architecture and still more wondrous ornamentation. When he finally left the Mount, and took his way down the wide, steep decline—the whole of this wide road was composed of marble blocks, reminding him of the Roman Appian way—his mind was in a whirl, his head ached with the glare of the sun on the gold, and with the deep concentration of his sight upon so much colour and glitter. Again and again he paused, and looked upwards and backwards, he had a difficulty in tearing himself away. But he had ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... enough, it was perfectly easy to whirl the little wheel around which made the rudder creep out. There was a steering wheel in the doctor's compartment and one in my own. He set it exactly amidships, and told me to prepare for the ascent. I turned out the gas in my compartment and crouched nervously ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... have bread in abundance and yet are starved; with barns and warehouses filled, with shelves and larders laden they are empty and hungry. No man need envy them; their feverish, restless whirl in the dust of publicity is but the search for a satisfaction never to be found in things. They are called rich in a world where no others are more truly, pitiably poor; having all, they are yet lacking in all because they have neglected the ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... turned in our saddles every once in a while and fired back, and then went on. We were reinforced by the last ten that left us. Just at this time a horse under one of our men was shot, and he was on foot running. We made a whirl around this man who was on foot, which seemed to check the enemy. At this time one of the enemy was shot off his horse. This man who was shot from his horse was surrounded by two of his friends who dismounted to defend him. As soon as ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... Adrian's servant and withdrawn to take up her abode in the camp of the enemy, so to speak, she was not one whom Mr. Landale would have regarded with favour in any case; but now, concentrating his thoughts from their aimless whirl of dissatisfaction upon the present encounter, he was ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... rolling here and there, Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought, So was her mind continually in fear, Toss'd and tormented with the tedious thought Of those detested crimes which she had wrought; With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky, Wishing for death, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... telegram in my hand, the room seemed to whirl around me; and, if the attentive maitre d'hotel had not caught me, I think I should have fallen. There was something so strange in all this, something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me a sense of my being in ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... but she did not respond. Her brain was suddenly in a whirl that carried her past the wild incongruities of the situation. If Kersley had "prospects" like that—She did not ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... much did Sihamba fear it, indeed, that she slipped from his back, and leaving Suzanne to cling to the saddle, caught hold of his mane, floating alongside of him and protected by his neck from the whirl of the water. Lying thus she continued to call to the horse and to urge him forward, and ever he answered to her words, so that although twice he nearly sank, in the end he set his feet upon a sandbank and, having rested there a while, plunged forward, half wading and half ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... to the Big M Ranch is going to be in a whirl of excitement, fellows. I've noticed that somehow we seem to stir up things wherever we go; not that we mean to have things happen, but they just pick out such a time to play hob," said Jerry, shaking his head as ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... thou that bear'st the fire about, Which, like the springing of a mine, Sends up to heaven the street-long shout: Full well I know that thou wast here; That was thy breath that thrilled mine ear; But vainly, in the stress and whirl, I dive for thee, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of space, there were in the same room three rows, one above the other, of machines. Jack was on the upper floor, where all the noise and dust of the place ascended. When he leaned over the railing of the gallery, he beheld a constant whirl of human arms, and a regular and monotonous ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... and gentleman-like young Wesleyan minister, whose name has escaped me. He described vividly as we stood together on the deck, looking up at the volcano, the awful beauty of the twin lakes, and of the clouds which, for months together, whirl in and out of the cups in fantastic shapes before the eddies ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... which follows the uplifted banner of Satan is so penetrating, that we hardly wonder to see the new generations carried away in the sweep of popular enthusiasm. Here is excitement, exhilarating enjoyment, the throb and sting of the flesh, the breathless whirl of gaiety, the physical quiet of satisfied desires. What is there to appeal on the other side? As the crowds troop past to the sound of music and dancing they for a moment raise their eyes, and above them rises a hill whereon is a Cross and on the Cross an emaciated Victim is nailed, ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... hunting after we killed that caribou. That night we camped, and I heard stories, from two poor, humble men, that made my head just whirl, for they were really Odysseys, or sagas, or any of the big tales one ever heard of. It would seem, Aunt Jennie, dear, as if the world is not at all the prosy thing some people take it to be. I suppose that the great knights and warriors are altogether ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... autumn winds blow! They frighten the bees and blossoms away, And whirl the dry leaves over the ground; They shake the branches of all the trees, And scatter ripe nuts and ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... not touch upon, by at least ten years. Nor did we give expression to a thought which strongly oppressed me, and which I once or twice fancied I could detect in John likewise—how very like this night seemed to the night when Mr. March died; the same silentness in the house—the same windy whirl without—the same blaze of the wood-fire on ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... the Son promised than he received a stinging blow from the paternal walking-stick, and by the time he had counted to seventy-five had the unhappiness to see the old man jump into a waiting cab and whirl away. ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... spectacle, oppress the heart like fear, and dilate it like hope. All this life speaks of death. Athos had seated himself with his son, upon the moss, among the brambles of the promontory. Around their heads passed and repassed large bats, carried along in the fearful whirl of their blind chase. The feet of Raoul were across the edge of the cliff, and bathed in that void which is peopled by vertigo and provokes to annihilation. When the moon had risen to its full height, caressing with its light the neighboring ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... probable that the savage contemplated some movement of the kind, but he must have known the fatal risk involved. Quick as he was, he could not whirl about and bring his gun to a level before the young man would pull the trigger of the Winchester, which was held pointed toward him. He knew that so long as he obeyed orders he would be unharmed, and he would have been a zany had ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... do? Why, come back to town next year and pick up the threads. My nerves, which seemed a little out of the way, are better than they were when I came here. There's nothing to equal country air. I must have that whirl in my district yet. I don't think the boys have quite forgotten me. Have you noticed the drift at all? I could only judge from the papers. How are things in the ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... man, hard up! are you mad?" Paul uttered these words as he sprang to the wheel, which he made whirl with his own hands in the required direction. As for the seaman, he yielded his hold without resistance, and fell like a log, as the wheel flew round. A ball had entered his back, and passed through his heart, and yet he had stood steadily to the spokes, as the true mariner ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... people did I find myself sadly dreaming of that grey pongee skirt and the beautiful heart that had understood! Should I ever see that lady? Not, I knew, alas! in the whirl about Poor Jr.! As soon look for a nun at the ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington

... should see afar off, a black slouch hat and a jogging gray horse rise above a little knoll that was in line with the mouth of the Gap. At once he crossed his hands over his chubby stomach with a pious sigh, and at once a plan of action began to whirl in his little round head. Before man and beast were in full view the work was done, the hands were unclasped, and Flitter Bill, with a chuckle, had slowly risen, and was waddling back to his desk in ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... haste to get away, she handed the man what money she had left, made a sign to him to go on and, without saying good-by, Lily saw the cab drive off. It was evening, in a quiet street: where was she? Lily did not know; her head was in a whirl. She recognized Old Compton Street: had they gone no farther? It seemed to her that she had been riding for an hour ... but ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... girl, passing backward and forward from the noise and whirl of wheels in the mills, to the whirl and noise of wheels in ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... was to be tolerated at all in correct society, it must at least be danced in a deliberate manner, consonant with the dignity of the English character. It was, therefore, taken at half its original temps; it ceased to be the giddy, intoxicating whirl in which the Germans delight, and subsided into the comparatively insipid and spiritless affair known thirty years ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... a man's, and still had snuff in it—or even whither she had been so completely spirited away that there remained of her no more than this, and the black kerchief, and about the carriage a fragrance of her—perceptible only by a lover's senses. A whirl of pity and rage—pity for her, rage against her captors—swept such questions from his mind. He was shaken by gusty impulses, now to strike Mr. Dunborough across his smirking face, now to give some ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... when the huge salvers and platters were cleared away, I was placed on the table to execute the sword dance. I must have acquitted myself with some credit; for the gentlemen set up a prodigious clapping, though I recall nothing but a snapping of my fingers, a wave of my cap and a whirl of lights and faces around my dizzy head. Then my uncle took me between his knees, promising to let me sit up to the end if I were good, and more ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... found precisely nothing. You who may read this will probably laugh, but I cannot. To me this is no laughing matter. I find myself jumping at the slightest noise, an increase in the wind, the snap of an expanding hull plate, the crackle of static over my radio. I whirl around to see who, or what, is watching me. My skin crawls and prickles as though I were covered with ants. My mind is filled with black, inchoate dread. In three words, I'm scared stiff! Yet there is nothing tangible—nothing I should be frightened about, and this terrifies me even more. ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone

... which those accustomed to the vernacular of America could plainly distinguish "darned old fool." Meantime, in spite of political discussions, or amorous revelations, or prophetic disaster, in spite of mid-ocean storm and misty-fog-bank, our gigantic screw, unceasing as the whirl of life itself, had wound its way into the waters which wash the rugged shores of New England. To those whose lives are spent in ceaseless movement over the world, who wander from continent to continent, from island to ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... wresting away from her the penny and such other poor trifles as were worth the taking. At the sight of her thin limbs struggling in weak resistance, such a glow of fierce anger passed over Alleyne as set his head in a whirl. Dropping his scrip, he bounded over the stream once more, and made for the two villains, with his staff whirled over his shoulder and his ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Slings shall not whirl, nor many arrows fly, When on the plain the battle joins; but swords, Man against man, the deadly conflict try, As is the practice of Euboea's ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... shall whirl about Their silv'ry spheres, there's none may doubt But more's sent in than ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... chamber silts the white Flux of another dawn. The wind that all night Long has waited restless, suddenly wafts A whirl like snow from the plum-trees and the pear, Till petals heaped between the window-shafts In a drift ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... sweep aside The cities that clutter our path... As we whirl about the circle of the globe... As we tear at the pillars of the world... Open to the wind, The Destroyer! The wind that is battering at ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... moons shall whirl about Their silvery spheres, there's none may doubt But more's sent in than was ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... pleasure to feed them during the bad weather, and it was often a difficult task even before Jack came on the scene to mix himself in my affairs. The Land's End is, I believe, the windiest place in the world, and when I opened the window and threw the scraps out the wind would catch and whirl them away like so many feathers over the garden wall, and I could not see what became of them. It was necessary to go out by the kitchen door at the back (the front door facing the sea being impossible) ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... to music. Having learned to dance, its fascinations led her an enthusiastic captive. Modesty was crucified, decency outraged, virtue lost its power over her soul, and she spent her days dreaming of the delights of the sensual whirl of the evening. Hardly conscious of the change she had now become as bold as any of the women, and loved the embrace of the charmer. The graduation of the class was, of course, the occasion of a waltzing reception. To that reception she went, attended ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... not oppressed by a six months' night, for all except those at the VERY pole have a sunrise and a sunset every ten hours—the exact day being nine hours, fifty five minutes, and twenty-eight seconds. The warmth of the tropics is also tempered by the high winds that must result from the rapid whirl on its axis, every object at the equator being carried around by this at the rate of 27,600 miles an hour, or over three thousand miles farther than the earth's equator moves in twenty-four hours. "The inclination of the axis of our own planet has also frequently considerably exceeded ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... of course, you've had no time to meet them in your mad whirl. Now that things have slowed down a bit ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... to pay for this indulgence, having been compelled, by immemorial usage, on entering the room, to drink a bumper of the sparkling juice to the dregs in honour of the bride, to undergo the same ceremony of bride and bridegroom's salutation, and to whirl half a round of a waltz with the former. But I had made up my mind to bear even worse inconveniences than these, should it have been necessary, rather than forego the advantage of judging for myself of the truth or falsehood of the many exaggerated and fanciful descriptions given by travellers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... where it ought to lie, not on the wrong, which has enough to bear of its own. And go not into that dust-whirlwind of extinct stupidities, O reader:—what reader would, except for didactic objects? Know only that it does of a truth whirl there; and fancy always, if you can, that certain things and Human Figures, a Friedrich, a Chatham and some others, have it for their Life-Element. Which, I often think, is their principal misfortune with Posterity; said Life-Element having gone to such an unutterable ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... been formidable from the first if he had permitted the use of his name, but he had invariably met the proposition with the answer that he could under no circumstances become a candidate. He now repeated this statement from the chair, but Ohio insisted and New York assented. With a whirl of excitement all the States followed, and the nomination was made on the twenty-second ballot by a unanimous vote. Mr. Seymour had, no doubt, been sincere in declining to be a candidate; but the prolonged balloting ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... general and his staff. Quadrille parties were held weekly by the regiments and corps in garrison. Invitations for these parties were general. These were delightful gatherings. We always had the best music, and the ladies of the city who attended were pleased at all times to be in the whirl with the gay young warriors. Our drills outside the gymnasium were bayonet, sword and route marching. The bandmaster during the winter organized an orchestra which was a great ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... neither health nor constitution, nor, to do the early lover of Jane Sinclair justice, heart for the modes and habits of that society, through the vortices of which he now found himself compelled to whirl. He was not, in fact, able to keep pace with the rapid motions of his fashionable wife, and the result in a very short time was, that their hearts were discovered to be anything but congenial—in fact anything but united. The absence of domestic happiness ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... should her enjoyment of all this be. But Matilda felt as if she were taken off her feet. So she went to praying, for she could not think. She had only two minutes for that, before Norton rushed in and came to her side with Vick's Catalogue; and the whole rest of the evening was one delicious whirl through the wonders of a flower garden, and the beauties of various coloured ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... eyes, he was trying to understand something of the new impulses and thoughts that surged through him. He could have given little or no account of the reasons why he was here; of his hopes or fears or expectations. He was as one who watches on a sheet shadow-figures whirl past confusedly, catching a glimpse here of a face or body, now of a fragmentary movement, that appeared to have some meaning—yet grasping nothing of the intention or plan of the whole. Or, even better, he was as one caught in a mill-race, ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... Mr. Greenleaf," she answered. "I have need of rest and reflection. I am not used to scenes like this, and my brain is in a whirl." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... secret of them. She took to reading newspapers and magazines, prohibited publications printed abroad and even the revolutionary manifestoes which were just beginning to appear at the time (she was able to procure them all); but this only set her head in a whirl. She fell to writing letters; she got few answers, and they grew more incomprehensible as time went on. Stepan Trofimovitch was solemnly called upon to explain "these ideas" to her once for all, but she remained distinctly dissatisfied with ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... with impious will, Have made these Negroes turn Thy mill! Their human limbs with chains we bound, And bade them whirl Thy mill-stones round; With branded brow and fettered wrist, We bade them ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... to the intellectual pressure of the conversation. He could understand, in a vague way, that for some unexplained reason things were going well for him, but beyond that his mind was in a whirl. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... find it in my heart to refuse these dear people. And then, perhaps it was best not to go quite on to Palmyra at once, for fear of unexpectedly running against my father's murderer. If I met him in the street, and he recognised me and spoke to me, what on earth could I do? My head was all in a whirl, indeed, as to what he might intend or expect: for I felt sure he expected me. I made one ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... was finished, the crowd rushed again out of the church to see the departure of various dignitaries. There was a perfect whirl of dazzling equipages, and glittering lackeys, and prancing horses, crusted with gold, flaming in scarlet and purple, retinues of cardinals and princes and nobles and ambassadors all in one splendid confused jostle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... went out. Unorna ate mechanically what had been set before her and waited. She felt that a crisis perhaps more terrible than that through which she had lately passed was at hand, if the stranger should prove to be indeed the Beatrice whom the Wanderer loved. Her brain was in a whirl when she thought of being brought face to face with the woman who had been before her, and every cruel and ruthless instinct of her nature rose and took shape in plans for her ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... thing is made, whether it be To move on earth, in air, or on the sea; Whether on water, o'er the waves to glide, Or, upon land to roll, revolve, or slide; Whether to whirl or jar, to strike or ring, Whether it be a piston or a spring, Wheel, pulley, tube sonorous, wood or brass, The thing designed shall surely come to pass; For, when his hand 's upon it, you may know That there's go in it, and he'll ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... stone had left the sling, it could fly away from the earth to a distance which the most casual observation would prove to be proportionate to the speed of its flight. Extremely rapid motion, then, might project bodies from the earth's surface off into space; a sufficiently rapid whirl would keep them there. Anaxagoras conceived that this was precisely what had occurred. His imagination even carried him a step farther—to a conception of a slackening of speed, through which the heavenly bodies would lose their ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... NOT turn dizzy, however, bind me fast, my friends, to this pillar! Rather will I be a pillar-saint than a whirl of vengeance! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... in the open! Three glorious days in the sunshine! "Far from the madding crowd!" Far from the rush and stir and whirl and hum of business! Far from the McNamara horror, and its sickening aftermath ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves

... then the same as a permanent steel horseshoe magnet, which would hardly be possible at all. One who has watched the installation of a dynamo, knowing that there is nowhere near any ordinary source of electricity, and has seen its armature begin to whirl and hum, and then in a few moments the violet sparklings of the brushes and the evident presence of a powerful current of electricity, is almost justified in the common opinion that the genius of man has devised ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... every act that passes within its walls. And Constance plausibly argued that no harm could come from a game which you played by yourself. She acquired with some aptitude several varieties of Patience. She said: "I think I could enjoy that, if I kept at it. But it does make my head whirl." ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... canoe in her eagerness to back out of the group and whirl her canoe about that she might see. Down upon the scene was bearing one of the larger power boats from the other end of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... conditions. We continually take food, use it for energy and growth, and return the simpler waste compounds. We are all of us, as Professor Huxley has said, "whirlpools on the surface of Nature;" when the whirl of exchange of particles ceases we die. We have seen that the fusion of two amoebae results in a new rejuvenated individual. Why is a mixture of two protoplasms better than one? We can frame hypotheses; we know nothing about it. What of the ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... all of his body above a line drawn from the corner of his jaw past the middle of his side, the middle of his leg and through his ancle bone, would remain out of water. He could lift his head clear out, if he chose. No position can be retained long; you lose your balance and whirl over, first on your back and then on your face, and so on. You can lie comfortably, on your back, with your head out, and your legs out from your knees down, by steadying yourself with your hands. You can sit, with your knees drawn ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... never put any of those thoughts into words, though in her books she loved best those words that expressed her half-formulated feelings. Had she been removed to the noise and the whirl of city life, she would very probably have known how to define what she had lost, she might even have made others feel what she herself had so keenly felt. But in the silent towers of her home, or amidst that noiseless, ever- growing life ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... had to be instant; and Nelson, judging the water to the larboard of the Russell to be deeper, put his helm a-starboard, and so shot past the Russell on its larboard beam into the true channel, the whole line following his example. That sudden whirl to starboard of the flagship's helm—a flash of brilliant ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... plus forty, while pretty warm, isn't impossible, by any means; and we could stand double our air pressure for quite a while. Both my partner and I are pretty fair mechanics and we've got quite a line of machine tools, such as you could not possibly have here. We'll give it a whirl, since we owe you something already. Lead us to it, ace—but wait a minute! We can't see through the fog, so couldn't find the plants, and probably your wiring diagrams would explode if I ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... a whirl. What should she ask first? She must do it directly, or Mother would be gone. It all seemed confusion, and at last ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton

... the first wave of the great gold rush, Brent plunges, with the enthusiasm of youth, into the whirl of Dawson, the city of men gone mad. How luck sat upon his shoulder, and how his recklessness and daring won him the admiration of those wild times, until the raw red liquor of Alaska downed him "for the count," is but the beginning of the tale; for with him, we are carried into ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... meantime, Bishop Pendle was enveloped in a whirl of petticoats, as Cargrim's Amazonian escort, prompted by the chaplain, was insisting that he should have his fortune told by Mother Jael. The bishop looked perturbed on hearing that his red-cloaked ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... suburb I heard neither that day nor the next. The whole week went by; no Crescenz appeared, and my husband, in a whirl of engagements, soon forgot her. One Sunday evening we had a small musicale. Captain Wasselt, Count Hardegg, and others were there. During a pause I was called out, and there was the outfit. I went back to the room and asked, 'Have you ordered ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... could not have been better chosen, if the special errand for which he had been employed had been to make trouble. Light-headed and vain, with but little ability and a vast store of unintelligent zeal, the whirl of the French revolution flung him on our shores, where he had a glorious chance for mischief. This opportunity he at once seized. As soon as he landed he proceeded to arm privateers at Charleston. Thence he took his way north, and the enthusiastic popular acclaim which everywhere greeted ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... is God's Universe: In measured rhythm the planets whirl their course: Rhythm swells and throbs in every sun and star, In mighty ocean's organ-peals and roar, In billows bounding on the harbor-bar, In the blue surf that rolls upon the shore, In the low zephyr's sigh, the tempest's sob, In the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... as her soul. He must pray. He knew the feeling well—a sort of mental giddiness, a delirium in the brain; and it increased rapidly, urging him to fall on his knees. If he resisted, it was because he was ashamed and feared to pray to God to reserve Nora for him. But the whirl in his brain soon deprived him of all power of resistance, and, looking round the room hurriedly to assure himself he was not watched, he fell on his knees and burst into extemporary prayer: 'O my God, whatever punishment there is to be borne, let me bear it. ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... With a sudden whirl to one side, the cat sprang with claws drawn and paws extended. It was clear that he had hoped to outflank the bear. In this he failed. A great forepaw of the bear swung over the tiger's head, ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell

... Punch, buffo singers with guitars, reciters of poetry, reciters of stories, a row of cheap exhibitions with clowns and showmen, drums, and trumpets, painted cloths representing the wonders within, and admiring crowds assembled without, assist the whirl and bustle. Ragged lazzaroni lie asleep in doorways, archways, and kennels; the gentry, gaily drest, are dashing up and down in carriages on the Chiaja, or walking in the Public Gardens; and quiet letter-writers, perched behind their little desks and inkstands under the Portico of the Great ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... express train! No—he was mad indeed! maddened by the suddenness of his bereavement; but not so mad as that; and he started after his flying love in the fierce, blind, passionate instinct of pursuit. A whirl of wild hopes kept him up and urged him on—hopes that they might stop on the road to water the horses, or to refresh themselves, or that they might be delayed at the toll-gate to make change, or ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... laid him in his cradle and went off to help Madame Vaurois, who had come to herself and was crying out, while Madame d'Imbleval had fainted in her turn. And, when Mlle. Boussignol, having settled the two mothers, but half-crazed with fatigue, her brain in a whirl, returned to the new-born children, she realized with horror that she had wrapped them in similar binders, thrust their feet into similar woolen socks and laid them both, side by side, in the same cradle, so that it was impossible to tell Louis ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... a whirl; maybe the Carters didn't want children, but it was more likely that they too had tried but ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... hurry on his way to the Hall. Already things were in a whirl, and the confusion was so great that he was momentarily unable to map out ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... are in this agitated and convulsive painting! The clouds and the garments whirl, the gestures are rapid, the attitudes are despairing, horror shudders in every pose and on every lip, and a great mute cry seems to rise throughout this entire temple and throughout this entire ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... proportions from the full-sized leader to the enormous thill horse, who bore the heat and burden of the day. Sometimes half a dozen of them would pass in a row, the drivers walking together and whiling away the time with stories and songs. Now and then a post-chaise would whirl by with a clattering of wheels and cracking of whip that were generally redoubled as it came nearer to the diligence, and sank again, when it was passed, into comparative moderation both of noise and speed. There were foot travellers, too, in abundance; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various



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