"Overwhelming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wife, just come out in the January number of the Sabbath at Home, in which she asks the New Year what it has in store for her, and says if it is death, it is only going home the sooner. Neither he, or anyone, had seen it or heard of it, and it came to them with overwhelming power and consolation as the last utterance of ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... overwhelming just at present,' said Mrs. Micawber; 'and whether it is possible to bring him through them, I don't know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which I now employ it, but ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... strong that he found himself playing with the thought of marriage, as one plays in lofty moments with the idea of a not altogether unpleasant self-abnegation. He did not love Judy, but he was conscious of an overwhelming desire to make Judy happy—and like all desires which are conceived in a fog of uncertainty, its ultimate form depended less upon himself than it did upon ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... disaffection. It is not we who liberated ourselves, it was the enemy; it was our destruction that set us free. On the day before we asked for the armistice, perhaps even on the day before the flight of the Kaiser, a plebiscite would have yielded an overwhelming majority for the monarchy and against Socialism. What I so often said before the war came true: "He who trains his children with the rod learns only through ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... the blow must be heavier and more signal. It is trifling with our patience to pretend to persuade us that such a confiscation scheme as is now recommended to the country would not throw the whole work of the Church into confusion and disaster, not perhaps irreparable, but certainly for the time overwhelming and perilous. People speak sometimes as if such a huge transfer of property was to be done with the stroke of a pen and the aid of a few office clerks; they forget what are the incidents of an institution which has lasted ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... The midday heat being overwhelming we took a cab and drove back along two kilometres of dusty road. A veiled woman stopped the coachman, asking him to give her tired little girl a lift. Jehu refused, through awe of us; but we insisted on taking ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... Billings Henry was briefer than his name would indicate, but to a certain two-room dwelling on Jackson Street he made up in importance what he lacked in height; and it was his overwhelming sense of this importance which made every thin muscle taut and strained every nerve as he stood in the forefront of the crowd, his bare feet planted on the cold asphalt, one hand gripping his remaining stock of papers, the other clutching ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... simplicities of Vasari[48] dismissed with contempt or with compassion. But very different men from these have held precisely the same language; and, one amongst the rest, whose authority is absolutely, and in all points, overwhelming. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... mood of last night and the morning, but cool and gay, as it was his fashion to be; though gravely and punctiliously attentive to his charge. Cool, that is to say, as the day permitted; for the sun was fervent, and pouring down his beams with an overwhelming lavishness ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... immediately afterward, on the 22d of July, and later at Franklin, they withstood so magnificently the shock of battle, and at the word of command hurled themselves again and again against the enemy, rushing dauntlessly onward to meet overwhelming numbers and certain death. On the 18th of July, the news reached us that General Johnston had been relieved from command, and that General Hood had succeeded him. I knew nothing of the relative ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... in all frankness, that the defence of the Alamo was a mistake, for those gallant men must have known that they could not hold out against the overwhelming forces of Santa Anna. And they did not remain there because all escape was cut off, for they could have gotten away just as easily as the reinforcements from Gonzales got in. It was not until the final days of the siege that the Mexicans drew around ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... they endeavored to soften off its effulgent glare! Then in hushed silence, or at most uttering at intervals a few interjections expressive of their intense admiration, they remained for some time completely engrossed in the overwhelming spectacle. For the time being, every sentiment, impression, thought, feeling on their part, was concentrated in the eye, just as at other times under violent excitement every throb of our life is concentrated ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... Willard, he had many times wanted to ask about the hands. At times an almost overwhelming curiosity had taken hold of him. He felt that there must be a reason for their strange activity and their inclination to keep hidden away and only a growing respect for Wing Biddlebaum kept him from blurting out the questions that were often ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... the Rhine and, reinforcing his following as he proceeded on his march, appeared before Andernach at the head of a formidable force, composed of many of his former subjects, together with Thuringian auxiliaries. The people of Andernach, unable to resist this overwhelming argument, again accepted ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... mass of them and the masses under their influence are preponderatingly Confucian; and in the observance of ancestral worship, the most remarkable feature of the religion proper of China from the earliest times, of which Confucius was not the author but the prophet, an overwhelming majority are ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... was overwhelming. Surely the chateau was near. I strode up and down upon the mountain-top, clenching my hands with rage. It was four days since I had lost Jacqueline, and Leroux had contemptously left me to die in the snow. He was so sure I could ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the part I had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air breathed upon me as I reached the brow of Kilbride-hill, had I been then questioned as to the manner I had come there, verily I could have given no account, for I saw not, neither ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... shatter the opposition of individual instincts. Not only do the bees and the ants satisfy their reproductive and parental instincts vicariously; but marriage itself successfully imposes celibacy on millions of unmarried normal men and women. In short, the individual instinct in this matter, overwhelming as it is thoughtlessly supposed to be, is really ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... with the overwhelming expression of physical fatigue, almost exhaustion, that Fraser gives to his Indian in "The End of the Trail." It is embodied in rider and horse. Man and beast seem both to have reached the end of their resources and both are ready to give up ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... the natural colonizer of the world. In the short space of three centuries, America, sprung from her loins, has become a giant offspring, a new era in the history of the human race, a new birth whose future must be overwhelming. Of later date, and still more rapid in development, Australia rises, a triumphant proof of England's power to rescue wild lands from barrenness; to wrest from utter savagedom those mighty tracts of the earth's surface wasted from the creation ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... her relations with "La Grande Mademoiselle," Madame de Frontenac is lost to sight for a while. In 1669, a Venetian embassy came to France to beg for aid against the Turks, who for more than two years had attacked Candia in overwhelming force. The ambassadors offered to place their own troops under French command, and they asked Turenne to name a general officer equal to the task. Frontenac had the signal honor of being chosen by the first soldier of Europe for this most arduous and difficult position. He went accordingly. The ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... after winning a majority of the seats in February 2004; following the 2004 Majles elections, traditional and hardline conservatives have attempted to close ranks under the United Front of Principlists; the IIPF has repeatedly complained that the overwhelming majority of its candidates have been unfairly disqualified from ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... his straits; it would even seem that, favoured by a change of dynasty at Damascus, he had succeeded in taking from the Syrians the fortress of Ramoth in Gilead, which had been the object of Ahab's unsuccessful endeavours, when suddenly there burst upon the house of Omri the overwhelming catastrophe for which the prophets had long ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... happy instance, the cosmopolite habit, the modern sympathy, the intelligent, flexible attitude, the latest fruit of time, adjust themselves to the great gilded, relinquished shell and try to fill it out. A Venetian palace that has not too grossly suffered and that is not overwhelming by its mass makes almost any life graceful that may be led in it. With cultivated and generous contemporary ways it reveals a pre- established harmony. As you live in it day after day its beauty and its interest sink more deeply into your spirit; it has its moods and its ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... different character was also given, tending to establish the theory that the disabilities alleged were at least to some extent attributable to military service, the overwhelming weight of proof seems to establish that whatever disabilities exist are the result of disease contracted by vicious habits, and that such disabilities had their origin ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... bid defiance to almost any number of savages. And subsequently, as the Indians obtained fire-arms, they could not hope to capture the fort without a long siege, or by assailing it with a vastly overwhelming superiority of numbers. The accompanying illustration will give the reader a very correct idea of this renowned fortress of logs, which was regarded as the Gibraltar of ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... the best and bravest of the land. Scarcely a family record but tells of an ancestor slain at Flodden, and many laments have come down to us for "The Flowers of the Forest". But, although the disaster was overwhelming, and the loss seemed irreparable at the time, though the defeat at Flodden was not less decisive than the victory of Bannockburn, the name of Flodden, notwithstanding all this, recalls but an incident in our annals. Bannockburn is an incident in English history, but it is ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... each chair; the wines were as fine as any in America, and the favourite dishes of the Americans had been prepared. Even Brotherton, although more nervous than was usual with him, caught the contagion of the hour and touched his glass more than once to that of the woman whose overwhelming personality had more than half ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... stood there, about to turn and retrace her steps, Catherine suddenly saw James Mottram advancing quickly towards her, and the mingled revolt and sadness which had so wholly possessed her gave way to a sudden, overwhelming feeling of ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... his subject was overwhelming in itself, and was greeted with such yells of laughter that the poor elocutionist found it utterly impossible to go on. He tried once or twice, but never got ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... impression photographic in its swiftness, a chance remark, may be more illuminating than a day's experiences. One does not need to go to the front for them. Sometimes they come to the gateway of our chateau. They are pages at random out of a library of overwhelming information. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... flaming mass would thenceforward assist the flames in the rapidity of their progress. Such was the effect upon the declension of the Roman empire from the vast extent of its territory. For a very long period that very extent, which finally became the overwhelming cause of its ruin, served to retard and to disguise it. A small encroachment, made at any one point upon the integrity of the empire, was neither much regarded at Rome, nor perhaps in and for itself much deserved ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... into our confidence when we require you.' And she resumed her foreign air in a most elaborate and overwhelming bow. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of overwhelming recollections swam before his eyes as he neared the place; there, from the gate, he could see the fated balcony which had tempted and facilitated his stealthy exit on that wretched night when he had ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... accusing him, in the presence of Forester, of stealing some jewellery and bank-notes which have disappeared in the confusion arising from an alarm of fire. The plunder has been placed in Williams' boxes, and the evidence against him is overwhelming. He is imprisoned, and the sordid horror of his life in the cells gives Godwin an opportunity of showing "how man becomes the destroyer of man." He escapes, and is sheltered by a gang of thieves, whose leader, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... these daring and deadly blows, the governments of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia instituted a joint campaign against the Cherokees. It was believed that, by delivering a series of crushing blows to the Indians and so conclusively demonstrating the overwhelming superiority of the whites, the state governments in the Old Southwest would convince the savages of the futility, of any attempt ever again ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... which finds its outlet down the narrow gorge through which the road runs is enormous. Even so, under ordinary climatic conditions its maintenance does not offer very exceptional difficulties, as much of it is blasted out of rock; but during extraordinarily heavy storms the danger of destruction by overwhelming floods ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... which at first assailed Bonaparte, were speedily banished; and he soon recovered the fortitude and presence of mind which had been for a moment shaken by the overwhelming news from Aboukir. He, however, sometimes repeated, in a tone which it would be difficult to describe, "Unfortunate ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... by way of counterpoise to the voting power of a bare and overwhelming proletariat, the worthier and far sweeter voices of those who have virtues and excellences of various kinds to recommend them,—so that if the lowest constituent counts for one, the highest may add up to six or eight. ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of things in Asia Minor, when intelligence arrived of the fearful disasters which had befallen the Athenians in Sicily—disasters without a parallel since those of Salamis—sudden, unexpected, overwhelming. The news, flying through Asia, awoke everywhere a belief that the power of Athens was broken, and that her hostility need no longer be dreaded. The Persian monarch considered that under the altered circumstances it would be safe to treat the Peace of Callias as a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... of the Minotaur has settled in baleful desire, has said, "Better to die fighting than fall into the hands of the devil!" And they have fought—valiantly, and saved their souls alive, though their bodies may have been crushed out of existence by overwhelming odds. As nations, however, they shall rise again, and with honour, when their treacherous torturers have ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... revolutions, as well as many literal earthquakes in various parts of the earth. And these, said the Master, mark the beginning of the end of the world, which takes place during the time of his presence. The evidence here is overwhelming, proclaiming his presence and the end of ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... angry because they did not bring me a chair quickly enough, stretched out his fat, flabby hand to draw this chair quite close to his own, and made a sign to a tall, bearded satyr, whom he called the Brother Treasurer, to go out; then, after overwhelming me with questions about my journey, and my return, and my health, and my family, while his keen restless little eyes were darting glances at me from under eyelids swollen and heavy from intemperance, he ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... registered in heaven; that Charles Lennox had claimed her as his own, even in the agony of tearing himself from all he loved; and that she had only felt how dear she was to him at the very moment when she had parted from him, perhaps for ever? But Mary strove to banish these overwhelming thoughts from her mind, as she devoted herself to the performance of the last duties to her departed friend. These paid, she again returned ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... fatigue. All but the apex may often be reached in the saddle. The bergschrund with its fragile lip of ice, the crevasse with its treacherous bridges, and the avalanche which an ill-timed footstep starts with overwhelming havoc, do not threaten the explorer of the Western mountains; and ordinarily he passes from height to height—from the base with its wreaths of evergreens to the zone where vegetation is limited to the gnarled dwarf-pine, from the foot-hills ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... to come upon Mark, was more than a coincidence. He had been led to believe that Mark and she were not even acquainted, and even the discovery that she was married did not prepare him for something more overwhelming still. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... bosoms; but as we followed the footsteps of our sable friend, and beheld the bright foliage of the trees, and heard the cries of the paroquets, and smelt the rich perfume of the flowering shrubs, the truth, that we were really delivered from prison and from death, rushed with overwhelming power into our souls, and with one accord, while tears sprang to our eyes, we uttered a ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... great trade routes to Montreal were reasonably free from the danger of an overwhelming Iroquois attack, the coureurs-de-bois rounded up the western Indians with their stocks of furs from the winter's hunt. Then, proceeding to the grand rendezvous at Michilimackinac or Green Bay, the canoes were joined into ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... sudden panic. His tone spoke of some catastrophe, imminent and overwhelming. Monica followed the direction of his eyes. They were staring in ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... her. But out of eighty boys it would not be reasonable to suppose that all should share this feeling alike,—we have seen already one exception; yet the disaffected were in a very small minority, and the majority was so overwhelming, and had amongst it all the best acknowledged strength and power of the school, that no one dared to say above his breath one word against Mrs. Brier, if he cared for ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... of that particular individual unimportant. Thus (I mention names to illustrate my meaning, not for any personal application) the opinions supposed to be entertained by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright on resistance to foreign aggression might be overlooked during the Crimean war, when there was an overwhelming national feeling on the contrary side, and might yet very properly lead to their rejection by the electors at the time of the Chinese quarrel (though in itself a more doubtful question), because it was then for some ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... papers drawn up by Don Jose (this time in the shape of an address from the Province) induced that scrupulous constitutionalist to accept the extraordinary powers conferred upon him for five years by an overwhelming vote of congress in Sta. Marta. It was a specific mandate to establish the prosperity of the people on the basis of firm peace at home, and to redeem the national credit by the satisfaction of all just ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... his little room under the eaves, Eric Marshall was in the grip of the most intense and overwhelming emotion ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... summer months and leaves him idle or unemployed in winter time cannot well be described as a desirable trade. Yet the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money in advance, as is the case in this particular industry, often proves overwhelming to the young man of the Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before he is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing family. It is so easy to accept the proffered gold, which will keep wife and babies in comparative comfort throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour is ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... teeming with life in all its varied and changeful positions, and reflected that every individual in that moving mass possessed an immortal mind, and was pressing their way to these grassy avenues, passing on, step by step, toward the silent grave, the thought was overwhelming, and the question came up, "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that thou ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... was because they were made of the material which is not easily beaten, and then they learned as the years went by that the human soul and will may be even stronger than that which may seem at the outset overwhelming fate. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from one verandah to another. I must insist on this look, even if it shock the delicacy of my listeners, for without the interest it awakened in me, I might not have noticed the blush with which she turned aside to join her friends on the verandah. It was an overwhelming blush which could not have sprung from any slight embarrassment, and, though I hate the pretensions of those egotists who see in a woman's smile more than it by right conveys, I could not help being moved by this display of feeling in one so gifted with every grace and attribute of the perfect ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... to allow his royal foe to escape so easily. Nor, indeed, could Henry without reluctance fly from the peril he had provoked. At all events, on reaching Saintonge, the English turned to bay, and a battle began. But the odds were overwhelming; and, though the Anglo-Norman barons fought with characteristic courage, they were speedily worsted, and under the necessity of making ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... curtain over the heavens. The darkness seemed to have rolled up with unusual swiftness, and not the faintest glow of colour remained to show where the sun had set. There was present in the atmosphere that ominous and overwhelming silence which so often ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... before the American public in such wise as to command respect, and has brought about the conversion of many of its non-Catholic readers. Since its beginning it has been forced to hold its own against the claims of not unwelcome rivals, and against the almost overwhelming attractions of the great illustrated secular monthlies, to say nothing of the vicissitudes of the business world; and it has succeeded in doing so, Father Hecker's purpose in establishing it has been realized, for it has ever been a first-rate Catholic ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... size. If these figures are so large that the mind cannot grasp them, it is well, by means of comparisons, to translate them into terms of the reader's own experience. There is always danger of overwhelming and confusing a person with statistics that in the mass mean ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... tends, as Madame de Stael says, to bring more poetry into life, some women, in whom virtuous mothers either from considerations of worldly advantage of duty or sentiment, or through sheer hypocrisy, have inculcated steadfast principles, take the overwhelming fancies by which they are assailed for suggestions of the devil; and you will see them therefore trotting regularly to mass, to midday offices, even to vespers. This false devotion exhibits itself, first of all in the shape of pretty books of devotion in a costly binding, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... expression of a slowly formed inner feeling, which comes to utterance only after long maturing. This I call a "Composition." In this, reason, consciousness, purpose, play an overwhelming part. But of the calculation nothing appears, only the feeling. Which kind of construction, whether conscious or unconscious, really underlies my work, the patient ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... has the power to disturb the calm serenity of the atmosphere, changing it into night and producing sparks and winds, with fearful thunder and lightnings that fly through the darkness, and overthrowing high buildings with violent winds and uprooting forests and striking armies and shattering and overwhelming them, and producing, in addition to this, devastating storms which rob the peasants of the fruits of their toil, what kind of warfare is there so deadly to the enemy? Who in naval warfare can be compared with him who commands the winds and generates ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... regarded. This task the Government, now for the first time effectively controlled by the king, was quite willing to undertake, all the more so on account of the recent burning of the Gaspee and the dishonorable publication of Hutchinson's letters. By overwhelming majorities Parliament accordingly passed the coercive acts, closing Boston Harbor to commerce until the town made compensation to the East India Company, remodeling the Massachusetts charter in such a manner as to give to the Crown more effective ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... of the throng was broken by spontaneous cheering. It was impressive, overwhelming, like a great burst of ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... possible. Hal and Chester, however, realized the wisdom of the French commander's order, for there was a possibility, should the French and Americans advance too close, of their being set upon by overwhelming numbers from the German trenches, or of their being caught by batteries of rapid-firers, which most likely ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... "The overwhelming probability of a common cause for both was forced upon him, and by calculation he ascertained that this probability was as one million million million to one, in ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... apparition of his century. And to the century he has summed up so plastically and emotionally he has also propounded questions that only the unborn years may answer. He has a hundred faults to which he opposes one imperious excellence—a genius, sombre, magical, and overwhelming. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... her old lover she trembled violently and her face went ashy pale, then her beautiful eyes met Sigurd's with a look of such intense sadness and meaning that the spell was dissolved, and the remembrance of the love he had given her rushed suddenly back into his mind, well-nigh overwhelming him ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... as I can find out it is an overwhelming, unquenchable gladness for everything that has happened or is going to happen. At any rate, her quaint speeches are constantly being repeated to me, and, as near as I can make out, 'just being glad' is the tenor of most of them. All is," he added, ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... the window to call again for help; he realized with a horrible shrinking that that hammer-like fist was again striking out for his face; he was conscious of a sickening impulse to run, a humiliating and overwhelming sense of his inability to cope with this brute and of even his ignorance how to try; yet most of all he felt the determination to defend Edith or to die in the attempt. In a wild and futile fashion he dashed against his assailant, striking blindly and furiously, ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... foundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and Matteo Villani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of order consequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficed to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by an overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of 1348 among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in a mass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from the Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the mob. It is worthy ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... of Stirling, and was installed thereafter guardian of the kingdom; such a reverse was more than the "proud usurper" could brook; he accordingly mustered a large army, and at Falkirk literally crushed Wallace and his followers with an overwhelming force, the craven nobles still standing aloof, one of them in the end proving traitor, and handing Wallace over to the enemy, who carried him off to London, and had ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... mother and kissed her. Moved by a sudden overwhelming impulse of tenderness, Hermione put her arms round the child's slim body. But even as she did so she remembered Vere's secret, shared with Emile and not with her. She could not abruptly loose her arms without surprising her child. But they seemed to her to stiffen, against her will, and her ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... groans of the dying were heard along the line. The army of Rodolph was drawn up in two divisions—one commanded by the king, the other by the valiant Otto of Nordheim. As the division of Otto was a little in the rear, that of the monarch was for a time exposed alone to the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. But nobly indeed was the brunt of the battle borne. Rodolph waited not the onset, but led on his columns to the charge. Then Suabian and Saxon darted forward shoulder to shoulder, and ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... an appropriation, and, second, that the limited revenues of the State would not justify it. When the commission failed in this direction, a meeting was held to determine whether the commission should attempt to go ahead with the work or abandon the enterprise. The commission decided by an overwhelming vote that Texas could not afford to deny herself participation in a universal exposition where all the States and Territories of the United States would enter in friendly competition, and the executive committee and the general manager were instructed to proceed with the organization. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... their day, the school of the lovers of Nature as seen in the external world was making irregular progress. The overwhelming pressure of conventional traditions is shown most forcibly, however, by the fact that the great leader of this school of the students of landscape nature, the man to whom was given the power to see and to represent Nature in all the changing glories and beauties of her ceaselessly varying moods, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... in by Bridget. Perhaps his father's prayers had been answered. Providence sometimes meted out an overwhelming boon to really good people. David was certainly a Vavasour, if there was nothing Williamsy about his looks.... His mother, in Mrs. Bridget Evanwy's private opinion, had been a hussy.... Was David his father's son? Hadn't she once caught Mrs. Howel Williams kissing a young ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... seized with his last illness. Beginning at the end of November with what appeared to be influenza, it proved to be an attack of typhoid fever, and, congestion of the lungs supervening, he died on the 14th of December. The grief of the queen was overwhelming and the sympathy of the whole nation marked a revulsion of feeling about the prince himself which was not devoid of compunction for earlier want of appreciation. The magnificent mausoleum at Frogmore, in which his remains were finally deposited, was erected at the expense of the queen and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... almost fainted with excitement; for, besides the hope that he might now meet with friends, there was also the fear that those approaching might be enemies; and the sudden sound of the human voice, which he had not heard for so long, tended to create conflicting and almost overwhelming feelings in his breast. Hiding quickly behind a tree, he awaited the passing of the cavalcade; for the sounds of horses hoofs ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... overwhelming strength that makes us powerless against them." His voice broke, he turned his face away, that I might not ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... common belief, and the notion has not yet, I think, altogether vanished, that the dying are held back from repose by the love that is unwilling to yield them up. Hence, in the third stanza, the Lord prays his mother to let him die. In the fifth, he reasons against her overwhelming sorrows on the ground of the deliverance his sufferings will bring to the human race. But she can only feel her ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... to enter upon any discussion of principles, with the apostles of absolute power; as applied to France and our own time, experience, and a very overwhelming experience, has supplied an answer. Absolute power, amongst us, can only belong to the Revolution and its representatives, for they alone can (I do not say for how long) retain the masses in their interest, by withholding from ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... they held out against the overwhelming force that was thirsting for their blood. Their chief had anticipated no such resistance, and he was impatient at the delay in finishing the butchery. He resorted to an infamous stratagem, proposing to General Wheeler, who was in ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... afterward passed, for she believed Professor Fisher eternally lost. No mind more directly and powerfully influenced Harriet's than that of her sister Catherine, unless it was her brother Edward's, and that which acted with such overwhelming power on the strong, unyielding mind of the older sister must have, in time, a permanent and abiding influence on the mind ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the wealth that Thord was possessed of. And on hearing this he becomes exceeding faint-hearted, and rides forthwith to see Hoskuld to tell him of his troubles. Hoskuld said, "Times have been that you have been terror-struck, through not having with such overwhelming odds to deal." Then Thord offered Hoskuld money for his help, and said he would not look at the matter with a niggard's eye. Hoskuld said, "This is clear, that you will not by peaceful consent allow any man to have the enjoyment of your wealth." Answers Thord, "No, not quite that though; ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... friendly, and hostages were exchanged on both sides. In the end, however, the English force was, without warning, attacked by the Spaniards as they lay at anchor. The majority of the men who had gone on shore were slain, and those who remained on the ships were assailed by overwhelming numbers. After a strenuous tussle with the Spaniards, Drake in the Judith, followed some time afterwards by Hawkins in the Minion, got away. The condition of Hawkins's crew, unprepared as was this ship for ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... never heard a more inadequate word. I call them simply overwhelming—the steam-rollers of the vegetable world. Look at their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... of seeing anything except the narrowness and the intrigues that were a part of his surroundings. More and more he showed himself a despot; he persecuted and imprisoned hundreds of Radicals, who were the overwhelming majority of the population. Espionage was rampant, the finances were in a state of chaos and Serbia's prestige was at such an ebb that, what with the disasters of 1885 and the reign of Alexander, the Macedonian Slavs ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... taking captive all our feelings, corporeal and mental, and moulding them to its will—a power of this nature seems to equal in dignity the highest faculties of genius in any of its forms, as it undoubtedly surpasses all the others in the overwhelming and instantaneous efficacy of its agency while thus working its wonders. Tame is the triumph of the artist in the exhibition-room, dim and distant the echo which the poet receives of the public praise, compared with the unequivocal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... something were near me. I put down my book and looked around, but could see nothing. I started to read again, but I hadn't read more than a page, or say a page and a half—or no, not more than a page, when again all of a sudden I felt an overwhelming sense of—something. I can't explain just what the feeling was, but a queer sense as if ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... not lay down his arms for the loss of Spain; he holds with Themistocles that those who are masters at sea will be the victors in the end. He has neglected Spain. He has given all his care to his ships. When the time comes he will return to Italy with an overwhelming fleet. And what will he say to me if he finds me still sitting here?—Let alone duty, I must think of the danger.... Every course has its perils; but I should surely avoid a course which is both ignominious and ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... earlier days of the war, the French had reached Metz and Strasbourg, but had been hurled back by overwhelming numbers of the enemy and forced to retreat well into France. Then the German line in Alsace and Lorraine had been weakened to hurl denser masses of Germans upon the British and ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... reading stand, letting his little winking eyes travel over the crowd as he stood there waiting, apparently oblivious to the long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it finished, he said simply, "We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist order!" Again that overwhelming human roar. ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... readily concede that in natural endowments he fell short of the most illustrious of his predecessors, that he lacked the intuitive grasp which he ascribes to Mrs. Siddons and to Kean, and that he never reached the intensity and complete abandon which gave an overwhelming effect to their highest performances. We may apply to his acting what Carlyle has so justly said of the poetry of Schiller, that it "shows rather like a partial than a universal gift—the labored product ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the huge, white marble structure, cupolaed, gabled, buttressed, and pinnacled, an overwhelming sense of what it stood for suddenly came upon the girl, and she saw revealed in a flash that side of its owner's life which for so many months she had been pondering. The great shadows that seemed to issue from the massive exterior of the building ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the poor." Poor folk, who haven't money to employ lawyers to guard their interests, and haven't time for much education to know better how to protect themselves against those who would take advantage of them—the poor, that's the overwhelming majority of the whole world—He will be their judge. They will have a friend on the bench. But He will have this enormous advantage in judging all men, poor and otherwise, that He will not need to decide by what folk ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... a child begins to know that there is a past, he has a most noble rod to measure it by—he has his own ten years. He attributes an overwhelming majesty to all recorded time. He confers distance. He, and he alone, bestows mystery. Remoteness is his. He creates more than mortal centuries. He sends armies fighting into the extremities of the past. He ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... still it gains strength. The last proceedings in congress show that the federal government is aware of its rapid extension, and are determined to do all in its power to suppress it. The following are a portion of the resolutions which were passed last year by an overwhelming majority. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... him on his first expedition to the Scottish border, when she fell sick at Grantham, in Lincolnshire; and though he travelled day and night to see her, she died before his arrival, on the 29th of November, 1292. In overwhelming grief Edward accompanied her funeral to Westminster, a journey of thirteen days. Each evening the bier rested in the market-place of the town, where the procession halted, till the clergy came to convey it with solemn chantings to the chief church, where it was placed ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... utter dismay felt the ball knocked from his grasp and saw it go bounding over the ground. He lay sprawling, so tangled with the Wilton players that for the moment he could not rise. With horrified gaze he saw the leather oval roll free and he felt the overwhelming shame of one who has failed to be equal to the demands of a crisis. But his feeling of self-condemnation immediately gave way to an entirely different emotion, for a swiftly moving pair of legs incased in the Ridgley ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... an overwhelming contingent of the whole tough gang of wasps and hornets—brown wasps from under the eaves and fences; black hornets from the big paper nests; yellow-jackets from where you please; deep steel-blue ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... Emperor himself, who was a staunch adherent of the Romish system. How much easier, in comparison, must the work of Evangelical reformation have been, had it been resolved on by the power of the Empire itself, in accord with the overwhelming voice of the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... gossip, intimate chat, such as a contented husband may tell a wife in whom he places entire confidence. How happy she felt at the harmless chatter, and yet how intensely miserable. His inquiry, "Are you ill?" rang in her ears with a sickening clang, like some overwhelming reproach. Why, oh why, had she not spoken to him in time? He was so good to her. Now it was too late; and beside, why anticipate the fatal hour when he must know all? Why not improve the few moments of respite granted ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... finesse about that attack; nothing of skill or of tactics: nothing but the sheer brute force of overwhelming superiority of numbers and of over-matching power. One instant all space was empty. The next instant it was full of invading missiles—a superb exhibition of coordination ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... her usual graciousness; she always succeeded in maintaining her rank, even when most deferential to those men and women who lent it a new lustre by their brilliant names." She was very kind, extremely soft-hearted, and always overwhelming her companions with attentions and regards. Mademoiselle Avrillon, her reader, says: "I do not believe that there ever lived a woman with a better character, or with a less changeable disposition." She never dared to utter a word of blame or reproach. "If one ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... to overwhelm him. Arlok dodged Gordon's wild blows, then gently swept the Earth man into the embrace of his thin arms. For one helpless moment Gordon sensed the incredible strength and adamantine hardness of the Xoranian's slender figure, together with an overwhelming impression of colossal weight in that deceptively ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... and Stumpy, at the sound of the loud voice, went wild, trying to tear his way through the gate. When the gate opened, he had to brace himself against the frame, before he could grasp the Boy's hand, so extravagant and overwhelming were the yelping Stumpy's caresses. Gladly he suffered them, letting the excited dog lick his hands and even his face; for, after all, Stumpy was the best and dearest member of the Family. Then, to steady him, he gave him his bundle to carry up to the cabin, and ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... have been poured out during the same eruption that gave birth to the cone, cutting the lake in two, flowing a little way into the woods and overwhelming the trees in its way, the ends of some of the charred trunks still being visible, projecting from beneath the advanced snout of the flow where it came to rest; while the floor of the forest for miles around is so thickly strewn with loose cinders ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... from the wounded man, but the eager crowd did not heed, even if they heard, him as they rushed to the attack in overwhelming numbers. ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... over.[103] On the left wing scarcely a trigger was pulled: the men broke and ran like sheep. The famous Scots Brigade, in fact, set the example of flight. Their officers behaved like brave soldiers. Balfour, abandoned by his men, defended himself for a time against overwhelming odds, till he was cut down by a young clergyman, Robert Stewart, a grandson of Ballechin. Eight officers of Mackay's own regiment were killed, including his brother, the colonel; and many of Ramsay's. In vain was the cavalry ordered to charge. In vain did Belhaven like a gallant gentleman ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... down with his head in his hands. The people of the fleet faced so overwhelming a catastrophe that they could not see into it. They could only experience it. As their leader would have been unable to answer questions about the fleet's predicament before he'd poured out the tale in the form it had taken in his mind, now these mechanics were unable to see ahead. They were ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... murmured, edging involuntarily toward the door. Did I not know? Had I not been there, too; I, little I, whom he stood gazing down upon from such a height, little realizing the fatality which united us and, what was even a more overwhelming thought to me at the moment, the fact that of all persons in the world the shrinking little being, into whose eyes he was then looking, was, perhaps, his greatest enemy and the one person, great or small, from whom he had the ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... arguments to press upon us the fulfilment of our daily duties. How incomprehensible are the ways of God. His love is proved by bitterly convicting us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Like Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle, sometimes so overwhelming as to drive us to the verge of despair and self-destruction. We fall not down the precipice, for still there is hope and pardon in his bosom, and at the proper time it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sudden and overwhelming happiness Jean forgot Mlle. Fouchette except when she was actually before him he must be forgiven. But neither his father nor Henri Lerouge was so blind, though the latter evidently saw Mlle. Fouchette from a totally different ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... the minister, after great exertion, secured a few signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that I chewed tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. As I easily proved that I never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was unanimously refused ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... leave the country without losing a day; and she concluded by saying that in the event of her obeying immediately, she would provide generously for all her wants; then she signed and handed the three letters to Licquet, overwhelming him ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... the Romans ever suffered. No less than eighty thousand soldiers, and half as many more camp followers, perished. The battle of Aransio (Orange) filled Rome with alarm and fear, and had the Cimbrians immediately advanced through the passes of the Alps to Italy, overwhelming disasters might ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... you are engaged and pledged in a year or two to encounter a similar fate, and do you wish to know how you shall feel? Well, my dear, I have been dreading and dreading the time, and lying awake all last week wondering how I should live through this overwhelming crisis, and lo! it has come and I feel nothing ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... through pools and streams up to the ice-wall, and made the interesting discovery that the glacier had been advancing of late years, ploughing up and shoving forward moraine soil that had been deposited long ago, and overwhelming and grinding and carrying away the forests on the sides and front of the glacier. Though not now sending off icebergs, the front is probably far below sea-level at the bottom, thrust forward beneath ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... for the uncontrolled passions of men, there would be no such women. So while we, individually, as men, may not be responsible for the ruin of any one woman, we must confess that men as a class are responsible for this condition of prostitution and clandestine intercourse. An overwhelming majority of women would, if following their inclinations, seek these relations in wedlock only and for procreation only. But many a young woman, under promise of marriage, sometimes even under a bogus marriage, is brought into a condition of hypnotism or into a ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... finished this work, Edward resumed his march, passing on to the westward through Touraine, to avoid the French king, who he knew was coming down upon him from the direction of Chartres at the head of an overwhelming army. King John advanced to the Loire, and sending different detachments of his army to different points, with orders to cross at any bridges that they could find, he himself came to Blois, where he crossed the river to Amboise, and thence proceeded ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Lord of the Admiralty.] where they met ministers, generals, great ladies and men of genius, and rose daily in hope and promise. Haydon now began the picture of the 'Death of Siccius Dentatus' that his patron had suggested, but he found the difficulties so overwhelming that, by Wilkie's advice, he decided to go down to Plymouth for a few months, and practise portrait-painting. At fifteen guineas a head, he got plenty of employment among his friends and relations, though he owns that ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... cool in order to be in efficient condition to grapple with and suppress this attack. Sometimes a regiment, stung to a frenzy of courage by bullets and the death of comrades, will rise from its trench without the volition of its officers, and go frantically forward against overwhelming odds. A different effect of an almost identical psychological process is patience. Men will sometimes lie as quietly under a rain of bullets, in order to get in one effective shot at an enemy, as cattle in the ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... the resistless sea. A master mind sent it over those Manassas hills and plains, here diverting a portion of its waves, here curbing a too rapid onslaught, here harking the great mass forward, surmounting barriers, overwhelming a stubborn opposition, crumbling and breaking to pieces. Wave on wave, rapid, continuous, unremitting, thundered the assault, in the red sunset of the thirtieth of August. Pope's Army fought bravely, but in the dusk ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... of solitude and desolation became the sense of an overwhelming presence that stooped towards ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... falling upon the rear and dealing slaughter among the retiring hosts. This fact Ganelon pointed out to the Saracen king, and he undertook to have Roland placed in the rear-guard of the Franks. He suggested that the Moslem hosts be massed together in overwhelming numbers, ready to make a sudden descent upon the rear-guard when Karl should be too far in front ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... yarn to a greater length than I intended. I know nothing of the law, and therefore cannot describe the legal proceedings which took place; but all I know is, that the evidence we brought forward was so overwhelming that Mr Biddulph Stafford was defeated, and that Harry fully established his claim as ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... of pleasure shot through the heart of Christina. Passion is potent to twist in its favour whatever can possibly be so twisted. Here was an indubitable indication of his thoughts! He must make the most of himself, set what he could against the overwhelming advantages on her side! In the eyes of a man of the world like her father, an old name was nothing beside new money! still an old castle was always an old castle! and that he cared about it for her sake made it to her at ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... creature hesitated to reply: the evidence of guilt had evidently been overwhelming. Then, obeying a sign from Renine, she ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... somnambulistic attack, he imagined that he saw a wild beast rise up from the floor and fly at his child, a babe of eighteen months. He sprang at the beast and dashed it to the ground, and when awakened, to his horror and overwhelming grief he found that he had killed his beloved baby. A similar record has been reported of a student who attempted during the night to stab his teacher; the man was disarmed and locked up in another portion of the building; ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... of the tussle. Now, unless our leading statesmen are humbugs and unless we are prepared to quarrel with America in the interests of the monarchist institutions of Europe, we should, in the event of an overwhelming victory, destroy both the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg Imperialisms, and that means, if it means anything at all and is not mere lying rhetoric, that we should insist upon Germany becoming free and democratic, that is to say, in effect if not in form ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... the particulars of this meeting; because, when the reader shall have perused an account of two subsequent public meetings, which I attended in this county (at both of which the propositions that I supported were carried by overwhelming majorities); when he shall have coupled them with the great public meeting that I was instrumental in calling at Bath, in the year 1816, at which meeting I presided, and at which those resolutions and that petition were adopted, and signed by 20,000 names, which was the cause of Lord Camden ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... apart, silent for a moment, struggling against the overwhelming suggestions of the situation. Even his mother did not belong here; she had her own home. Perhaps it would be found that no woman for whom he cared could ever have a right in this lovely house. When these guests had gone he would shut up the place ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... be a wrong one, or an impartial one, and through the wrack and ruin may dawn larger vision, but, unless the nature be a marvelously developed one the storm that breaks when an ideal is shattered is overwhelming. ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... I have addressed a letter to the G. O. M., A PROPOS of Wellington; and I became aware, you will be interested to hear, of an overwhelming respect for the old gentleman. I can BLAGUER his failures; but when you actually address him, and bring the two statures and records to confrontation, dismay is the result. By mere continuance of years, he ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... applause, but yet it seemed as if the words that set the defendant free had relieved every bosom of an overwhelming dread; the air seemed easier to breathe; and there was no one there but seemed physically better and also happier, for hearing a verdict which gave sanction for the general pity they had felt for the unhappy defendant, a man of honour ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... first care was to select a chosen band of experienced warriors, and there was need, for the Philistines gathered together a great army, with 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen, and encamped at Michmash. The Israelites, in view of this overwhelming force, hid themselves from fear, in caves and amid the rocks of the mountain fastnesses. In their trouble it was found necessary to offer burnt sacrifices; but Saul, impulsive and assuming, would not wait to have the rites performed according to the divine direction, but offered the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... to the ruins in a string of hired carriages, at an incredibly early hour this morning. As the night was one long dog-howl, and the dawn one overwhelming cockcrow, people were thankful to get up. But what a waste of hardly obtained baths before the start! Between Medinet and Crocodilopolis rose a solid wall of red dust. We had to break through it, as firemen dash through the ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... transitory—generally very transitory; but while they last they produce results far greater than in the grown person. In the case of the latter, recollection of the past, anticipation of the future, or even the duties of the present, control the overwhelming sorrow, or call forth the energies needed to bear it. The child lives in the present, and this present is but the reflection of the world around, its impressions uncontrolled by experience, ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... make him feel the pressure of the war, but must remain inactive and await his approach, being in constant uncertainty at what point on the line or at what time he might make an assault. He may assemble and organize an overwhelming force in the interior on his own side of the line, and, concealing his purpose, make a sudden assault upon some one of our posts so distant from any other as to prevent the possibility of timely ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... most unexpected and overwhelming event to all parties. In the first place, she had never been before. Up to now she had been so haughty that she had never even asked Gania to introduce her to his parents. Of late she had not so much as mentioned them. Gania was partly glad of this; but still he had put it ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sphere of politics an enlightened and sagacious leader, declared that such a proposal was "absolutely impossible." The House rejected the proposal by 61 votes to 2. Even the marriage decrees of the Council of Trent were not affirmed by such an overwhelming majority. In matters of marriage legislation England has scarcely yet emerged ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... on their visit, were invited by all sorts and conditions of men to partake of champagne. The moment it was discovered that they were "connected with the Press," the offerers of hospitality were absolutely overwhelming. But, obeying the best traditions of their order, they sternly, but courteously, refused all refreshment. It is fortunate they pursued this course, for had they received the entirely disinterested kindness of their would-be hosts, their recollections of the marvels of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... and accumulated thickly between their solid buttresses. But it is on this crust that the mountaineer dwells. Here are his forests, here his pastures, and the ravages of the torrent both destroy his world, and convert it into a source of overwhelming desolation to ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this so- 152:1 called mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but 152:3 it is powerless. The immortal divine Mind takes away all its supposed sovereignty, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... English and Normans combined. They came to "high mettle" the blood of our race, and when the conquerors and the conquered were moulded into one people, the result was the Englishmen who won Crecy and Agincourt against overwhelming odds, whose very name was a terror to continental soldiery, as ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... his face in his hands, and sank down upon the ground, his soul writhing with the agony of an overwhelming despair. ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... judged insane. If the delirium that occurs in the course of certain diseases should be continued, the patient would be judged insane. In severe cases of Graves' disease the patient is insane. Individuals under overwhelming emotion may be temporarily insane. Every clinician has seen great numbers of cases in which insanity is a phase of a disease, of an injury, or of an emotion. The stage of excitation in anesthesia is insanity. ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... for their failure in some particular enterprise. In all else they were superior to the Irish; in arms, armaments, munitions, supplies of food and money, here the long purse, settled organization and greater commerce of England, gave her an overwhelming advantage. Moreover the English lacked the moral restraints that imposed so severe a handicap on the Irish in their resistance. They owned no scruple of conscience in committing any crime that served their purpose. Beaten often in open fight by the hardier bodies, ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... personage whom I might describe minutely, but I feel no vocation to the task. I see her, though, very plainly before me—a large woman of the gravest aspect, care on her front and on her shoulders, but not overwhelming, inevitable care, rather the sort of voluntary, exemplary cloud and burden people ever carry who deem it their duty to be gloomy. Ah, well-a-day! Mrs. Yorke had that notion, and grave as Saturn she was, morning, noon, and, night; and hard things she thought if any unhappy wight—especially ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... not on Jewish but on Gentile soil. In a very short time the Gentiles formed the overwhelming majority within the Church. As they did not become Jews and did not observe the Jewish ceremonial law, a problem arose as to the place of the Jewish law, which was accepted without question as of divine authority. One solution is given by the author of ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... the regiments stationed at Abrantes, and Terence received orders to take up a position four miles ahead of that town, and hold it unless Victor again advanced in overwhelming strength, and then to fall back on Abrantes. This exactly suited his own wishes. It was pleasant to him to be within a short ride of his old regiment, while at the same time his corps were not encamped with a British division, for his own position was an anomalous one, and among ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... behind it, which ere long, however, fades away into the darkness; it is of a kind that, though a little wise before the event, is apt to be much wiser after it, and to profit even by mischance so long as the disaster is not an overwhelming one; nevertheless, though it is so interwoven with luck, there is no doubt about its being design; why, then, should the design which must have attended organic development be other than this? If the thing that has been is the thing ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... talent is that he has somehow managed to escape a complete operation. It is a matter of common observation in reading biography that in proportion as men have had lasting power in the world there has been something irregular in their education. These irregularities, whether they happen to be due to overwhelming circumstance or to overwhelming temperament, seem to sum themselves up in one fundamental and comprehensive irregularity that penetrates them all—namely, every powerful mind, in proportion to its power, either in school or out of it or in spite ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... overwhelming rush of figures only accounts for the actual cost of hostilities. By this I mean arms and armament, food and military supplies, the construction, maintenance and renewal of fleets, the cost of transport and the pay of ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... capacity beyond the stage represented by a normal twelve-year-old child; that only 13,500,000 will ever show superior intelligence; and that only 4,500,000 can be considered "talented." "Still more alarming," the author continues, "is the prospect of the future. The overwhelming weight of evidence indicates that the A and B elements in America are barely reproducing themselves, while the other elements are increasing at rates proportionate to their decreasing intellectual capacity; in other ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... courage would be equal to the demands of a charge upon the handful of beasts that had routed them from their rightful abodes. The result of the encounter seemed foregone if the savages could curb their superstitious terror, for against their overwhelming numbers, their long spears and poisoned arrows, the panther and the apes could not be expected to survive a really ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the power of France at his back Charnisay had been defeated by a woman,—the Huguenot wife of an outlaw! He must reduce La Tour or stand discredited before the world. {68} Furious beyond words, he hastened to France to prepare an overwhelming armament. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... revealed the reality of men. It was a very true judgment to associate with him. His apostles were simple men who never thought of putting themselves in comparison with Him: the more they knew Him the more wonderful He seemed to them. We feel all through the Gospel story what an overwhelming impression His personality made upon men. There is no criticism raised on His character from any point of view. His enemies fell back on the accusation of blasphemy growing out of His claims, an accusation that would ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... of Irish life. Brings with it the force of an overwhelming truth. It is not merely plausible, it is convincing from its first word to its ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... him. He was seized by the primitive desire of man to leave some visible sign of overwhelming grief. His eyes rose above the rock to the lonely tree. Grasping the ax, he climbed the tree. High above the mountain-top he cut its stem. Then limb after limb fell crashing to the earth until only two were left. Out ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... among the hosts of heaven. We were not old enough to appreciate fully the wonderful meaning of the legend; but we felt its beauty and its appeal. To us forevermore the Milky Way would be, not Peter's overwhelming garland of suns, but the lucent bridge, love-created, on which the banished archangels crossed from ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
