"Deafening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do mine ears invade And have a concert of confusion made? The shriller trumpet and tempestuous drum, The deafening clamour from the cannon's womb. ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... the James to the Union left, to give the appearance of a readiness to do just what had been ordered to be done. This fire brought a return fire all along the lines. The night was dark and dismal, and the scene witnessed amid the deafening roar of cannon was indescribably wild and grand. Duty called some of us between the lines of cross-fire when the screaming shot and bursting shell from perhaps four hundred heavy guns passed over our heads. The world's war-history described no ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... regimental plate, racing cups, and hot-house flowers. The band commenced playing "Selections," somewhat deafening, perhaps, but then it was too cold to put them out ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... not, there she was, the miracle! All the bashfulness of his lifetime—it had often made existence well-nigh insupportable—came crowding into that one moment. The feeblest little bleat of a spring lamb too weak to stand up for the first time would have been a deafening roar in comparison with the silence which now penetrated to the marrow of his bones. He faced the two women at bay, with one ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... my feet, and well he might! A deafening double knock had resounded through the empty house; and to add to the utter horror of the moment, Raffles instantly blew out the light. I heard my heart pounding. Neither of us breathed. We were on our way ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... vessel; and the skipper, who happened to be standing near the taffrail, was horrified beyond expression to see an immense cone of water some thirty feet high rise out of the sea just astern of his vessel, to fall next moment with a deafening splash and an accompanying surge which tossed the little vessel as helplessly about for a moment or two as though she had been the merest cockle-shell. It took that skipper nearly half an hour to fully recover his faculties; and when he did so, his first act was to go below and ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... into that cold, still, deathly scene. The highway became a torrent, rolling with living waves which seemed inexhaustible. At the bend in the road fresh masses ever appeared, whose songs ever helped to swell the roar of this human tempest. When the last battalions came in sight the uproar was deafening. The "Marseillaise" filled the atmosphere as if blown through enormous trumpets by giant mouths, which cast it, vibrating with a brazen clang, into every corner of the valley. The slumbering country-side awoke with a start—quivering like a beaten drum ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... lands when traveling at a speed of a mile a minute, you feel no shock whatever, and cannot, in fact, tell the exact moment at which it first touched the ground. The motor close beside you kept up an almost deafening roar during the whole flight, yet in your excitement you did not notice it till ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... stood merchants' booths, each with a goodly crowd. Now a herd of brown goats came, the offering of a pious Phocian; now a band of Aphrodite's priestesses from Corinth whirled by in no overdecorous dance, to a deafening noise of citharas and castanets. A soft breeze was sending the brown-sailed fisher boats across the heaving bay. Straight before the three spread the white stuccoed houses of Cenchraea, the eastern haven of Corinth; ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... by a small aperture under the rock. It is as placid as a summer pond, and is fitted with steps for a bathing place. Bathe, truly! with the sea ever dashing against the side, and roaring and reverberating with deafening echo. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... we took our leave, and our hosts drew their pocket cannons and started firing; we naturally replied, and a deafening fusillade went on till every man had emptied his revolver. With singing ears we returned to our hotel to find the town alarmed, excited groups were congregated in the Market Square. Our feu-de-joie was speedily explained, and the men flocked into ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... The conductor touched his hat to Janet, who smiled like a sister upon this fellow-being. Two middle-aged men were the only other occupants of the interior of the car; both raised their hats to Janet. The girls sat down in opposite corners next to the door. Then, with a deafening continuous clatter of loose glass-panes and throbbing of its filthy floor, the vehicle started again, elephantine. It was impossible to talk in that unique din. Hilda had no desire to talk. She watched Janet pay the fares as in a dream, without even offering her ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... his teeth, a revolver in either hand, what followed was scarcely a memory. It remained afterward as a blurred, indistinct picture of action, changing so rapidly as to leave no definite outlines. He heard the answering call of three bugles; the deafening thud of horses' hoofs; the converging cheers of excited troopers; the mingling ring of revolver shots; a sharp order cleaving the turmoil; the wild neigh of a stricken horse; the guttural yells of Indians leaping from their tepees into the open. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... done? The place was lonely; the way difficult and dangerous; human relief was remote, almost beyond reach. It was impossible even to cry for help; or, if a cry could be uttered, it might reach, in deafening reverberation, the ear of the utterer, but it would not travel twelve inches farther in any direction. To add to the distresses of the case, the unhappy sufferer soon found great difficulty in breathing. What with the heat occasioned by the beating of the sun on the metal, and what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... A deafening crash, as of many guns, came to their ears from the outside. With one accord the entire party rushed to the outer door, a wild laugh from the hag ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... There was a sharp, amazed yelp of pain from the cub, and an answering roar from the mother. Another protesting cry—and then again that yellow streak as the lioness left her prey and sprang to her baby, with a deafening roar. The clown tugged the cubs sharply back into the recesses of the cage as the mother hurled herself through the narrow opening. Behind her the bars rattled into place and she ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... foe. Injured men, shot from their saddles, were seeking to crawl out of the way. Whirling eddies of smoke alternately hid and disclosed enemies, and from both left and right came the continuous and deafening ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was called, a seaman as courageous as he was skilful, the dangerous bearing of the land, and the object he desired to gain, I took my leave of the deck, and made more room for those who could be serviceable in the governance of the vessel. A deafening peal of thunder shook down a second deluge, and driven to seek shelter, R—— and P—— came to ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... storm? I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic, Butting against the mad Atlantic, When surge on surge would heap enorme, 260 Cliffs of emerald topped with snow, That lifted and lifted, and then let go A great white avalanche of thunder, A grinding, blinding, deafening ire Monadnock might have trembled under; And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below To where they are warmed with the central fire, You could feel its granite fibres racked, As it seemed to plunge with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... in welcome, as he mounted the steps of the little platform, "I've come to inspect your latest investment"; but catching sight of the "latest investment" he broke into a deafening roar. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... of the world. There was nothing else in the world but a crimson-purple glare and sound, deafening, all-embracing, continuing sound. Every other light had gone out about her and against this glare hung slanting walls, pirouetting pillars, projecting fragments of cornices, and a disorderly flight of huge angular sheets of glass. She had an impression ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... of smoke obscured the centre of the little vessel as if her powder magazine had blown up, and a deafening roar went ringing and reverberating from cliff to cliff as two of the great iron shot were sent groaning through the air and pitched right into ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... deafening, and Jupiter had already withdrawn under his tapestry, while the hall still trembled ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... he made up his mind quickly, and managed, with some little difficulty, to clamber up the high step of a third-class carriage and get in before the aforesaid porter had the chance to push him in head foremost. In another few minutes the engine whistle set up a deafening scream, and the train ran swiftly out of the station. He was off;—the hills, the sea, were left behind—and Weircombe—restful, simple little Weircombe, seemed not only miles of distance, but ages of time away! Had he ever lived there, he hazily wondered? ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... of timber originally added to these floors would have made them so firm that we might drive a caravan across them without shaking the building. We will, at least, have solid floors in the new house; but the architect informs us that 'effectual deafening of the floors and partitions necessarily adds considerably to their cost, since the walls and ceilings must be virtually double or filled with some light porous material. The construction I have described for making the house fireproof, or nearly so, would also make it comparatively ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... how to reach it? Jim was evidently a personage. The rough farmers commonly squeezed a way for him. And when they did not, he made it with his big body. As they drew near their haven, a great surging as of a tidal wave swept them off their feet. There was a deafening shout, and the stand rocked on its foundations. Before Stephen could collect his wits, a fierce battle was raging about him. Abolitionist and Democrat, Free Soiler and Squatter Sov, defaced one another in a rush for the platform. The committeemen and reporters ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... last reach, the saluting from every gun in the capital that could be fired without bursting was incessant; and as we neared the royal residence, the yells, meant for cheers, and the beating of gongs, intended to be a sort of "See, the conquering hero comes!" were quite deafening. The most minute particulars of our deeds, of course greatly exaggerated, had been detailed, long before our arrival, by the native chiefs, who were eye-witnesses; and when we were seated in the rajah's presence, the royal countenance relaxed into a smile of real ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... they received us with loud barking and the wildest demonstrations of delight. The geese and ducks kept up an incessant din, added to which was the screaming and croaking of flamingoes and penguins, whose dominion we were invading. The noise was deafening, but far from unwelcome to me, as I thought of the good dinners the birds ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... through the canvas top and gave the peculiar rattling sound so familiar to the lover of the circus as they moved majestically into the arena; elephants trumpeted shrilly and the animals back in the menagerie tent sent up a deafening roar of protest. After months of quiet in their winter quarters, this unusual noise and excitement threw the wild beasts into a tempest of anger. Pacing their cages with upraised heads, they hurled their loud-voiced protests into the air until the more timid of the spectators ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... about him. His young face paled to ashy whiteness, then with true British grit he extended his right hand and raised his black "billy-cock" hat with his left. At the same time he took one step forward. Then the war cries broke forth anew, deafening, savage, terrible cries, as one by one the entire three hundred filed past, the Prince shaking hands with each one, and removing his glove to do so. This strange reception over, Onwanonsyshon rode up, and, flinging his ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... other side of the hedge, "Shoot high! shoot high!" But at the end of the hedgerow an extraordinary scene occurred. One after the other, then in twos and threes, the birds sprang high over the bushes; the rattle of musketry—all the guns being together now—was deafening: the air was filled with gunpowder smoke; and every second or two another bird came tumbling down on to the young corn. Macleod, with a sort of derisive laugh, put his gun over ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... accents, the women in a shrill falsetto; while the clay drums, with heads of taut deer-hide, were beaten, the whistles blown, and the gourds and calabashes rattled, until the air resounded with the deafening noise.[24] ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a little from the deafening sound. "How shall I be able to rule all this great people? You forget, my lords, that I am only a little ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... battery, and over the water gracefully sped the lighted shell, its glimmering fuse lighting its course as it, too, sped on in its mission of destruction. Along the water fronts, and from all the forts, now a perfect sheet of flame flashed out, a deafening roar, a rumbling deadening sound, and the war was on. The men as a whole were alive to their work; shot after shot was fired. Now a red-hot solid shot, now a shell, goes capering through the air like a shower of meteors on a frolic. The city was aroused. Men, women, and children ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... throw up one hand—his left hand—with great violence, and fall flat; hardly was I conscious that I saw him fall; at the instant there was a deafening noise, and ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... and the express leaves Euston Square for Scotland at a quarter past. The heat in the station is very great, the noise almost deafening; huge engines are pouring out volumes of steam, the shrill whistle sounds, porters are hurrying to and fro. The quarter-past three train is a great favorite—more people travel by that than by any other—and the platform is crowded by ladies, children, tourists, commercial ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... entered Camden what a reception awaited the victors! It seemed that half the town had turned out to meet them. Everybody had a horn. As the first car, carrying the ball players, approached the opera house there was a deafening blare of sound, and the explosion of cannon crackers, and cheer after cheer rent the air. The moment the car stopped Frank Merriwell was torn from his seat by admirers, was lifted to the shoulders of sturdy fellows and carried to the hotel without being allowed to touch his feet to the ground, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... with a great {51} wooden cross he took to defend the choir from sacrilege. "Save Thy people, O God"; it was the refrain of the very psalm they had been singing. The place was dense with smoke, and the noise of the strife was deafening. A young monk died on the very altar steps, and received the last Sacrament from Fra Domenico ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... Tom managed to see sufficiently to thrust Mr. and Mrs. Illingway ahead of him. Tomba was at their side. The yells inside the hut were almost deafening. All the red dwarfs left to guard the captives had awakened, and they could see well enough to attack Tom. Fortunately they had no weapons, but they fairly threw themselves upon the sturdy lad, ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... of drums and cymbals and tabors, arose in both armies. And the warriors of the foe rushed against us, and we also (rushed) against them with loud shouts. And the uproar (caused by this rush) was deafening.[317] The vast hosts of the Pandavas and the Dhartarashtras, in that awfully murderous encounter shook in consequence of that uproar of conches and cymbals, like forests shaken by the wind.[318] And the din made by those hosts teeming with kings, elephants, and steeds, rushing against ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... basket was directly over the centre rock. Then gradually we slackened it, and let him down foot by foot, down under the rainbow, where the hot, mad mist flew up in fierce gusts, bearing the strong odor of crushed spruce fibre. He seemed to bear the deafening roar without confusion, and glanced about him quite coolly, as ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... that its shot should fall within the fort, instead of burying itself in the ramparts, and this gun was at once loaded with a red-hot shot. The word was given, the match applied, and the glowing missile sped on its way. A few seconds later the earth shook and quivered, a deafening roar stunned the sailors, and a vast cloud of smoke filled the ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... the warm and light breath of the wind and became covered with tiny wrinkles that reflected the sun in blinding fashion and laughed at the sky with its thousands of silvery lips. In the deep space between sea and sky buzzed the deafening and joyous sound of the waves chasing each other on the flat beach of the sandy promontory. This noise and brilliancy of sunlight, reverberated a thousand times by the sea, mingled harmoniously in ceaseless and joyous agitation. ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... tree," thought Tom "It will give me some shelter. I'll wait there—" His words were interrupted by a deafening crash of thunder which followed close after a blinding flash. "No tree for mine!" murmured Tom. "I forgot that they're dangerous in a storm. I wonder ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... "Jerusalem"—I mean, not so much in distance of time as in excellence. After these three are entered, some Lord Chamberlain should be appointed, some critic of authority should be set before the door to keep out a crowd of little poets who press for admission, and are not of quality. Maevius would be deafening ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... in detail what was going on, or much beyond the actual deployment of the troops. But the machine-gun fire, which during the morning had reached us in purring waves of sound, now increased to such awful intensity that the rattle became a roar incessant and deafening. From the moment the first waves started to advance across the open country they came under a devastating fire. They were bespattered with shrapnel from the guns, enfiladed on three sides by machine-guns whose fire swept them ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... made and carried quickly, was greeted with deafening applause by the visitors sitting, standing, or balanced in the window- seats, and then some one moved for an executive session, and slowly the crowd began ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... first thunder began to growl all around the horizon. A few minutes later the roar became incessant. I had a sensation as if the thunder rolled on the lower stratum of the clouds, and the whole mass would burst at any moment and come with a deafening crash upon the earth. A thunderbolt fell into the pond at the other end of the park, followed by another so close by that the house shook on its foundations. My ladies began to say the Litany; I felt uncertain ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... girl she was. He had a conference with the principal, and as a result Migwan was asked to read her poem at the rhetorical exercises in the auditorium that day. When she finished the applause was deafening, and with blushing cheeks and downcast eyes she ran from the stage. There were distinguished visitors at school that day, representatives of a national organization who had come to address the scholars, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... the spectator on the stairs stood stunned. The noise was deafening; the appearance of the man, whose expression was one of settled rage but whose actions were of the coldest regularity, was most bewildering, partially obscured as it was by the flying billets of wood; the mechanical attempts of ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... it had been a tree of straw. Dark objects began to come down with the stream. They seemed to be trying to preserve a semblance of dignity in their stately bobbing up and down, but apparently found the attempt difficult. The roar was almost deafening, but even above it a strangely deliberate grinding noise was audible. Old Mizzou said it was the grating of boulders as they were rolled along the bed of the stream. The yellow glow had disappeared from the air, and the gloom of rain had ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... Again the deafening report of the big gun sounded in our ears; and we could see the splash of the shot as it struck the water about fifty yards from the schooner. Immediately a flag was run up, then another and another; and we saw that she was not giving us her code number, but was spelling out her name, ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... numbered not less than two hundred men, but the storm of sound produced by the bugles, drums, sistra, and tambourines, which would have been deafening within the palace, was in no wise too loud or too tremendous under the vast cupola of the heavens, in the centre of that immense space, amid buzzing multitudes, at the head of an army which baffles enumeration ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... fancy they have taken flight somewhere; but I have missed them two or three years past." All this while, according to his fellow-traveller's report, the rookery was darkening the air above with undiminished population, and deafening all ears but his with their cawings. But nature has been gently withdrawing such phenomena from the notice of Thomas Westwood's senses, from the time he began to miss the rooks. T. Westwood has passed ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... license, 'none of your hysterics here, but stand up and be married.' And married they were; and the bride, in consideration of her cruelty, paid the costs of the suit and the marriage fees; and off they marched homeward, amid the deafening huzzas of the multitude that was gathered in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Amidst deafening applause the boat drew up before the landing-stage, and, while the oarswomen stood to attention, the central figure alighted, and moved slowly forward until she stood in front ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... It seemed to be coming across the middle of London; so, hastily doffing his overall, he left the Gardens and walked rapidly towards Portland Place. He had hardly got past the fountain presented by Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy in wasted benevolence, than he heard the deafening report of the bomb which had wrecked his studio, reduced it to a tangle of iron girders and stanchions, strewn its floor with brick rubble and thick dust, and left his wife a human wreck, lying unconscious with a broken spine, surrounded by splinters of ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... through tangled underwood Of old traditions out to broader ways. She lived to hear her work called brave and good, But oh! the thorns, before the crown of bays. The world gives lashes to its pioneers Until the goal is reached—then deafening cheers. ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to belong to no province of France, dominated the almost deafening noise; it penetrated through, even into the brandy-soddened minds of the multitude, for the suggestion was received with renewed shouts ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... players took their positions in front of the Yale goal and prepared for the play which would give them a try at the extra point after touchdown. The stands rocked with tributes of noise, bestowing upon Broadhurst one of the most deafening ovations ever accorded a gridiron hero. He had fittingly redeemed himself. His blood-tingling length-of-the-field run in the last minute of play had tied the score at six ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... the crowd gathered beside them, the women and children grouped around them, the drums renewed their deafening uproar, hands were violently clapped together, and then ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... a personal God. Of his mental condition we learn something from these words: "In the enormous machine of the universe, amid the incessant whirl and hiss of its jagged iron wheels, amid the deafening crash of its ponderous stamps and hammers—in the midst of this whole terrific commotion, man, a helpless and defenseless creature, finds himself placed, not secure for a moment, that on an imprudent motion a wheel may not seize and ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various
... dearly as he could. For an hour his fate trembled in the balance. At times there were lulls in the tumult, while a few voices only, raised in furious argument, were heard. Then the crowd joined in again and the yells became deafening, and every moment Edgar expected to hear the clash of weapons, and to see the little party to which he belonged driven headlong into the house followed by the Mahdi's men. But he had before witnessed many Arab disputes, and knew that however furious ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... reach home he found the whole family much upset. Everybody was talking at once. And in a household of more than two hundred that meant that the noise was almost deafening. ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... face with a fine large white beard set in a stock or band of beads. We were beckoned to squat alongside Nnanaji, the master of ceremonies, and a large group of high officials outside the porch. Then the thirty-five drums all struck up together in very good harmony; and when their deafening noise was over, a smaller band of hand-drums and reed instruments was ordered ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... there was a lull, certainly the shrieking of the gale seemed to subside, but only for half a moment, and in the doubly fierce renewal of elemental strife, amid deafening peals if thunder and the unearthly glare that preceded each reverberation, there came other sounds more appalling, and as the church rocked and quivered some portion of the ancient edifice fell, adding its crash to the diapason ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the mill went with the second bomb. Then followed a deafening uproar as plane after plane dropped its shells on the dead town. Marie and Sara Lee were in the cellar by that time, but the cellar was scarcely safer than the floor above. From a bombardment by shells from guns miles away there was protection. From a bomb dropped ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the scales, the result will be that the people will not wrangle; by abrogating, to the utmost degree, wise rules under the heavens, the people will, at length, be able to take part in deliberation. By putting to confusion the musical scale, and destroying fifes and lutes, by deafening the ears of the blind Kuang, then, at last, will the human race in the world constrain his sense of hearing. By extinguishing literary compositions, by dispersing the five colours and by sticking the eyes of Li Chu, then, at length, mankind under the whole sky, will restrain the perception of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of the mounds (bulten) the cattle were moving in black dense masses, making an almost deafening noise with their bleating and lowing. As we rode through the full river, we saw in mid-stream a cart that had stuck fast. A woman was standing in the water pushing at the back, while a girl held the reins. A few of our men jumped down from their horses and soon succeeded in ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... the elements united in one deafening crash; that the earth groaned as though the whole framework of the globe were ruptured; that the waters roared from their innermost depths; that the air shrieked with all ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... be a scanty supply of oil provided for the locomotives, but the cars had to run with unlubricated axles, and the screaking and groaning of the grinding journals in the dry boxes was sometimes almost deafening, especially when we were ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... sounded. The prince's huntsmen let loose eight elks, three bears, twenty-five wolves, and twenty-three wild boars; dogs trained for the purpose drove the animals toward the king's pavilion. The shouts of the huntsmen and the howlings of the animals were deafening. The king killed three boars with his own hands; the prince royal killed at least twenty of the creatures, and, not yet content, he fought a bear with a club, a proof of great strength and skill. I am to have the bear's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... grateful smile glimmered for a moment on her pale face, and then her expression passed into one of horror. With a cry that was lost in a deafening crash, she sprang into his arms. Even Webb was almost stunned and blinded for a moment. Then he heard rapid steps. Burt at last had been aroused from the slumber of youth, and, fortunately for his ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... them startled out of the land of dreams. Instinctively both reached for their belts and pistols, which they had placed close to their hands on retiring. There was no need for their use, however, for the author of the deafening racket was only Chris who, with a grin on his face, was beating on a tin-pan ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... uttered the words "Ladies and gentlemen," the Poland rooster, which seemed to have a grudge against the speaker, emitted another preposterous crow, and all the other fowls in the room joined in the deafening chorus. The audience roared, and Butterwick grew red in the face with passion. But when the noise subsided, he went at it again, and got as far as "Ladies and gentlemen, the domestic barn-yard fowl affords a subject of the highest interest to the—" ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... the British flagship dropped squarely aboard the Scharnhorst and exploded with a deafening detonation. Metal and bodies flew high in the air, shattered, and dropped into the sea for yards around. But the Scharnhorst had not been hit in a vital spot, and she continued to ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... These basins being large, there appears a space of several yards between each fall, which adds much to the picturesque scenery; the whole is within an arch of wood, that hangs over it; the quantity of water is so considerable, as to make an almost deafening noise, and uniting with the torrent below, where the fragments of rock are large and numerous, throw an air of grandeur over the whole. It is about seventy feet high. Coast from hence the woody shores of Tomys and Glena; they are upon the whole much the most beautiful ones I have anywhere seen; ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... and barking, and the canaries, hanging in cages above the windows, were straining their throats in rivalry and adding to the general uproar by the shrill trilling of their piercing notes. At the very height of this deafening merry-making a mud-bespattered carriage stopped at the gate, and a man of five-and forty, in a travelling dress, stepped out of it and stood still in amazement. He stood a little time without stirring, watching the house with attentive eyes; then went through the little gate in the courtyard, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... only then, the scene below was illuminated by the flash and roar of hostile artillery. A shell exploded with a deafening report so near their Bleriot that it was evident that the firer had sighted them during Lafe's ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... Startling, deafening applause! They must, they would have the song again, this time Aaroe's haughty opposition should be useless; but he would not give way, and at last some of the audience gave up the attempt, though others ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... with green shutters, half-hidden amid the sombre foliage, appears at the end of an alley of lilacs, "which sway in the spring under the weight of their balmy thyrsi." Before the house are the shady plane-trees, where during the burning hours of August the cicada of the flowering ash, the deafening cacan, concealed beneath the leaves, fills the hot atmosphere with its eager cries, the only sound that disturbs the profound silence ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... grenades dozens of the lancers fell and once, when a fungus bomb broke near by, Nelson saw half a dozen Atlanteans tumble from their saddles, the hideous yellow growths already sprouting from nostrils, mouth and ears. The turmoil became deafening, indescribable—like the roar ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... yelling, madly happy crowd. The Bannister Band, that famous campus musical organization, following a time-honored habit of playing on every possible occasion, gladsomely tuned up and soon the noise was deafening, while study-hour, as prescribed by the ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... ever such a speech?" I shouted into Mr. Lewis's ear, for the noise was deafening. "That will surely win ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the pain of death and wounds, especially when they are obliged to be physically inactive, and when they have nothing else to think about. This kind of dread is, in the case of a good many men, intensified by darkness and suspense, and by the deafening noise and shock that accompany the detonation of high explosives. But it cannot properly be called the fear of death, and it is a purely physical reaction which can be, and nearly always is, controlled ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... exercise is essential to prepare men for the deafening noise of a heavy action when speech or sound ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, That, with the hurly, death itself awakes? Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; And in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... the stream falls about ten feet, emitting, in its passage over a rocky bed, an agreeable murmur, which is rendered more grateful by its reverberations upon the roof and sides of the grotto. The discharge of a musket produces a crash-like report, succeeded by a roar in the tunnel; which has a deafening effect upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... friendship between France and the United States: May it be strengthened and perpetuated!"' General Schofield's toast was drunk with great enthusiasm, and upon his taking his seat the applause which followed his remarks was deafening." ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... a call, and in the middle of a burst of triumphant music George came on the stage. There was a deafening outbreak of applause and then a dead silence, but I think every man and woman felt a thrill of admiration of the noble figure Poor George! the new, tight-fitting dress of purple velvet that he had bought for this night set off his white skin, and his fine head was bare, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... out a round of applause when they cleared the bar in the high jump; but after it had been raised several notches above their best record, Angus Smith, who used to play such a clever game out in left for Mechanicsburg, easily crossed over, amid deafening cheers. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... autumn of 1915. I was coming across some swampy ground which separated our building from the large barracks called after the good and gentle Czar Lazar of Kosovofanee, when a shell flew over our heads, and burst close by with a deafening roar. The Doctor was coming from the opposite direction; we stood a moment to comment upon the perilous position we were all in. She looked up into my face, and with that smile that nobody who ever knew her could forget, and such ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... hair had risen. Kathlyn crouched even lower. The lion trotted round the sarcophagus, sniffing. Presently he lifted his head and roared. The echoes played battledore and shuttlecock with the sound. The lion roared again, this time at the insulting echoes. For a few minutes the noise was deafening. A rumble as of distant thunder, and the ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... vertigo seized him. His brain reeled. He fancied that the whole fabric of the bridge was cracking over head,—that the arch was tumbling upon him,—that the torrent was swelling around him, whirling him off, and about to bury him in the deafening abyss. He shrieked with agony, and clung with desperate tenacity to the roughened stones. But calmer thoughts quickly succeeded. On taxing his recollection, the whole circumstance rushed to mind with painful distinctness. He remembered that, before he attempted to dislodge the ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Phineus, followed by a furious throng Surrounds him single; thicker fly their darts Than wintry hail, on every side; his sight They cloud, and deafening, whiz his ears around. By crowds opprest, retreating, Perseus leans His shoulders 'gainst a massive pillar's height; And, safe behind, dares all the furious fight. Chaonian Molpeus rushes on his left; Ethemon, Nabathaean, on his right: Thus a fierce tiger, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... stump of the foremast, appearing like a torch, held up by the wild demons of the storm, or when occasionally the gleaming lightning cast a momentary glare, threatening every moment to repeat its attack upon the vessel, while the deafening thunder burst ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... a sharp fire under cover of the trees. Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired several volleys with great steadiness against the now invisible assailants. Few of them were hurt; the trees caught the shot, but the noise was deafening under the dense arches of the forest. The greater part of the Canadians, to borrow the words of Dumas, "fled shamefully, crying 'Sauve qui peut!'"[224] Volley followed volley, and at the third Beaujeu dropped ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... running about. One by one the men came out; each had a lantern in his hand. As they arrived at the place where the dogs were, each was surrounded by his team, who followed him to the tents with joyous howls. But everything did not pass off peacefully; I heard — I think it was in Bjaaland's tent — a deafening noise going on, and looked in at the door. Down there, deep below the surface, they were having a warm time. All the dogs were mixed up together in one mass: some were biting, some shrieking, some howling. In the midst of this mass of raging ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... moment the multitude was silent as the significance of Ohto's query sank into their slow minds, then a murmur of approval rose among them, swelled into a deafening shout of acclamation. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... deafening. The sensation was frightful. For a full minute neither of us could do aught but cling with the proverbial desperation of the drowning man to the handrails of our swinging seats. Then ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that my hand touched the knob of the door above, and ere I could open it, the whole fabric of the Abbey Inn was convulsed—the floor rocked beneath my feet; and there ensued the sound of a deafening explosion from the room below! An echo, or what sounded like an echo, sharp and staccato, came from the ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... with his brother Lakshmana to the court of Mithila, to try his strength in the bending of the bow of Siva, and thereby win Sita for his bride. The hero triumphs. The bow is broken with a deafening sound which brings Parasurama there. Rama wins his bride. He tries the bow of Parasurama and shoots an arrow from it which flies to Swerga or heaven. The Brahmin hero now acknowledges the Kshatriya hero to be ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... afternoon before Christmas I walked through the thronged Merceria to the Rialto Bridge, where the tumultuous mart which opens at Piazza San Marco culminates in a deafening uproar of bargains. At this time the Merceria, or street of the shops, presents the aspect of a fair, and is arranged with a tastefulness and a cunning ability to make the most of every thing, which ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... was totally incapable of fulfilling this role. Afterward several declarations were read—that of the Bolsheviki, that of the Socialist-Revolutionists (read by Chernov), that of the Mensheviki (read by Tseretelli). The partizans of each fraction greeted the reading of their own declaration with deafening applause (for the audience was one of "comrades" and did not hesitate to take part in the debates); cat-calls and shouts greeted the orators of the opposing fractions. Each word of the declarations of the Socialist-Revolutionists and of the Mensheviki (declarations which every Socialist ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... of the ship or on the pier, turned and looked in the direction of the child. Otherwise every thing went on the same. The carriages went and came, the people walked eagerly about among each other, exchanging farewells. The paddle wheels continued their motion, the steam pipe kept up its deafening roar, and the piles of trunks continued to rise into the air and swing over into ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... appeared to peel off the rock. During the entire descent this curious spectacle of regularly receding blackness and advancing grey was to be seen a yard or so in front of us. The roar of wings was now deafening, for the space into which we were driving the bats was very confined. My guide shouted to me that we must let them pass out of the tomb over our heads. We therefore crouched down, and a few stones were ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... in spite of his agony, had not forgotten his fiddle, which had saved his life in the forest. Seizing his bow with a firm hand, he drew from the instrument a shrill note, which overpowered the deafening barks of the coyotes, and silenced them as if by enchantment. This silence henceforth continued, only interrupted by the hysterical sounds which the fiddle produced under the fear-stiffened fingers of ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... apparently out of nowhere, a long, lean, gray car, low-built like a racer, carrying four masked and goggled men. Steadily gaining speed as it came, it bore down upon me and, after grazing me with its running-board and nearly deafening me with the powerful blast of its horn, flew on down the street and vanished in ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... surrender the powers with which it had invested me. You will understand, better than I can express, the sentiments of gratitude which the recollection of the confidence placed in me by the assembly, and of its kindness to me, will leave in my heart.' This short address was received with deafening cries ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... burden out. They swept along the sounding street, Then paused, and then with shriek and shout Hurtled as if a myriad feet Had joined the dread and deafening rout. ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... are, on foot the warriors vie In cruel strife, and blade to blade oppose; No marvel plate or brittle mail should fly, When anvils had not stood the deafening blows. It now behoves the palfrey swift to ply His feet; for while the knights in combat close, Him vexed to utmost speed, with goading spurs, By waste or wood the frighted ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... of the Titan began to lift, and ahead, and on either hand, could be seen, through the fog, a field of ice, which arose in an incline to a hundred feet high in her track. The music in the theater ceased, and among the babel of shouts and cries, and the deafening noise of steel, scraping and crashing over ice, Rowland heard the agonized voice of a woman crying from the bridge steps: "Myra—Myra, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... fire was gradually slackening, and that the guns which flanked their position were withdrawn, and everything bespoke a speedy retreat. A tremendous discharge of musketry at this moment, accompanied by a deafening cheer, announced the advance of the French, and soon the head of the Highland brigade was seen descending towards the bridge, followed by the Rifles and the 95th; the cavalry, consisting of the 11th and 14th Light Dragoons, were now formed ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... fingers to such purpose that a white silesia flag, worked with the camp name, floated from the tip top of the front entrance to the tent. The ceremony of raising the flag was attended with much enthusiasm, and its accomplishment greeted by a deafening cheer from ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... like that made by the wings of a great bird swooping down upon its prey. More quickly than he could apprehend the gradation, it increased to a hoarse and horrible roar, as the missile that made it sprang at him out of the sky, striking with a deafening impact one of the posts supporting the confusion of timbers above him, smashing it into matchwood, and bringing down the crazy edifice with a loud clatter, in ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... then, amid deafening salvos a dazzling vision appeared upon the platform, came forward with the carriage of a conscious queen, stood bowing and beaming in the gloss and glitter of fabric and of gem that were yet less radiant than herself. Stingaree stood inanimate ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... forward to the curb. The band was playing "Marching Through Georgia," which he hated; everybody was cheering. The volume of sound was deafening. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various |
